18-Year-Old Jailed in Columbine High Internet Threat

Warning that they will not tolerate terrorist threats against Columbine High School, federal officials charged an 18-year-old Florida man with sending a computer message that prompted the school to be closed for two days.

Federal authorities arrested Michael Ian Campbell of Cape Coral, Fla., and charged him with using an interstate communications facility to make a threat of injury to another person. The charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“Today’s arrest should send a strong message that threats, especially against our schools, will not be tolerated,” Thomas Strickland, U.S. attorney for the Denver district, said Friday. “These types of threats are taken very seriously.”

Campbell is accused of sending an Internet instant message to a 16-year-old Columbine sophomore Wednesday night warning her not to go to school the next day. “I need to finish what begun and if you do I don’t want your blood on my hands,” it read in part.

At a court hearing in Florida, the aspiring actor and community college student was ordered held without bail until a detention hearing Wednesday. Pamela Campbell, 60, said her son told her he wrote the letter because he “was bored to death.”

“He didn’t mean to do anything,” she said. “This was a stupid, stupid mistake, and he knows it and they know it too,” referring to the FBI, whose agents made the arrest.

Because of the threat, classes at Columbine were canceled Thursday and Friday, forcing the postponement of some final exams until after the holidays. It was the first time the Littleton, Colo., school was shut since classes resumed in August, four months after two seniors killed 12 fellow students, a teacher and themselves in an armed attack on April 20.

Officials would not comment on the seriousness of the threat.

The sender of the message used the screen name “Soup 81,” and authorities obtained a court order in Denver on Thursday that forced Internet service provider America Online to disclose details about an account holder using that name.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at Campbell’s house early Friday morning, questioned him and seized a computer. Officials said Campbell admitted that he used the nickname Soup 81 and that he sent the message over AOL’s instant message system to Erin J. Walton.

Officials said they did not believe there was any “long-term link” between Campbell and Walton and suggested he had learned she was a Columbine student through information about her that was available on the Internet.

Strickland said Campbell would be prosecuted in Colorado. He said it could be a few days to a few weeks before Campbell is brought to Colorado.

At the hearing in Florida, federal public defender Martin DerOvanesian tried to keep Campbell out of jail, saying he was concerned for his well-being. Campbell, whose father died a month ago, was in solitary confinement under suicide watch.

“He’s an 18-year-old going to jail,” DerOvanesian said. “I think his reaction is what anybody’s would be going to jail: He’s scared.”

Campbell is a graduate of Edison High School and just finished his first semester at a community college. He also acted in plays at Cape Coral Cultural Theater and wanted to be an actor, his mother said.

A neighbor, Wilma Brauchler, 64, said the Campbells had been living in Cape Coral for about six years, having moved there from Michigan.

“I know he was on the computer a lot,” she said. “These days everyone is on the computer in this neighborhood.”