Suspected Columbine Copycat Attack Gets Thwarted in California

1999 does not seem like that long ago, when you hear about a young person planning an attack, similar to the one that happened at Columbine High School.  What’s interesting about this story, is how you realize that maybe Columbine could have been stopped, just like this one was, if only the internet was a big then as it is now.

In 1999, 12 students and a teacher were killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. It was a tragedy that still hits close to home, over 15 years later.  That’s why this story stuck out to me. I did hear about how Instagram had helped stop an attack at a school, but I didn’t know what the young man actually had planned.

On Tuesday (September 1, 1025), a 15-year-old in Fresno, California apparently was planning an attack at San Joaquin High School.  When authorities searched his parents’ home after detaining the boy, they found four guns, 100 rounds of ammunition and a bullet-proof vest.

Turns out, the school was watching their students' Instagram accounts and saw that this kid had posted the lyrics to an Enimen song that talks about the massacre at Columbine:

“I take seven kids from Columbine, stand ’em all in a line, add an AK-47, a revolver, a nine, a MAC-11 and it oughtta solve the problem of mine. And that’s a whole school of bullies shot up all at one time. I’m just like Shady and just as crazy as the world was over this whole Y2K thing.”

That’s from Eminem’s ‘I’m Back’, from The Marshall Mathers LP. I honestly had never heard of this song before this incident. I won’t be rushing out to get the album. The school contacted the police, and they found the stash of guns and ammo.

Imagine that if Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook had been around in 1999.  You’d have to believe that Klebold and Harris would have posted something about their plans, in some way, right?

Does your school follow its students on social media?  Maybe they should start.

[Source: FoxNews]