Utah Teens Arrested in Alleged School Bomb Plot
Two high school students in Utah were arrested for planning to bomb a school assembly and make their getaway in a stolen plane, police said.
Dallin Morgan, 18, and Joshua Hoggan, 16, were pulled out of class at Roy High School on Wednesday and booked on conspiracy charges. Morgan was booked in the Weber County Jail in Ogden, while the younger teen was taken to a local detention center.
"Initial investigative discovery has uncovered a plan to use explosives during a school assembly," said Roy Police spokeswoman Anna Bond in a statement. "Maps of the school and information about security systems had been prepared with plans to escape using a plane."
The boys spent hundreds of hours on flight simulation software preparing, and CNN affiliate KSTU reported that the younger boy told police that he was so intrigued by the 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School that he interviewed the principal of that school.
Apparently the plot was discovered when a fellow student came forward about a suspicious text message she received from one of the suspects.
Sophomore Bailey Gerhardt told The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper the message read, "If I told you to stay home on a certain day, would you?"
Local and federal agents searched the high school as well as the suspects' cars and homes, but found no explosives. The FBI is examining their computers, but it's not yet clear when the attack was scheduled to occur.
The boys had " absolute knowledge of the security systems and the layout of the school," Bond said. "They knew where the security cameras were. Their original plan was to set off explosives during an assembly. We don't know what date they were planning to do this, but they had been planning it for months."
Megan Sayers is the managing editor for ModernMom. Follow her on Twitter @MeganSayers
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