Two Georgia students pleaded guilty on Friday, May 10 to attempted murder for their school shooting plot targeting black and disabled students.
What We Know…
- These Etowah High School Students had planned to use smoke bombs to get students and teachers into one area where they would “kill as many people as they could.”
- The pair’s “kill list” was shown in court to have a racial slur and an intent to kill all of the school’s black and disabled students. The students also had a map of the school with security cameras located.
- One of the students told investigators he was hoping to set records with this crime by murdering more people than the horrible 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, which killed 58 and wounded 422.
- The two entered “blind” pleas, which means there was no exchange from prosecutors for the guilty pleas.
- The students have been indicted with six counts of conspiracy to commit murder each, one count of conspiracy to commit arson and unlawful possession of a destructive device.
- Police received a tip about threats against the high school at which point the list was found. Police then found devices at the teenagers’ home.
- The students also reference a 1999 high school shooting in Colorado as “inspiration” for their attack, which one of the students has long been interested in. This shooting at Columbine High School resulted in the death of 13 and injury of 20 others, at the time the worst high school shooting in US history.
- Since Columbine, there have been over 230 school shootings excluding colleges and universities. 2018 saw a spike in school shootings, nearly doubling the number of shootings per year from the years of 2013 through 2017.
The chilling sentence hearing has not yet finished and will continue Monday, May 20.
