Long Beach Youths Face Bomb Threat Charges

Two high school students who allegedly filled a notebook with threatening notes, names and plans to build a crude bomb face criminal charges as well as expulsion from their Long Beach school.

The two Long Beach students, sophomores at Robert A. Millikan High School, appeared in Juvenile Court on Monday and pleaded innocent to charges of making terrorist threats.

The two 15-year-olds, who have remained in custody since their arrests last week, were also told that they would face additional charges later this month. The charges include possession of a material that could be used to make a destructive device, conspiracy to possess such a material, making a false bomb report and conspiracy to make a false bomb report.

The students, who have not been identified because they are juveniles, were arrested Wednesday at the high school campus after an anonymous caller complained about them. Investigators discovered that the students kept a notebook that allegedly contained passages describing plans for mayhem and names of presumed victims.

A search of the students’ homes turned up several firearms and a chemical compound that could be mixed with other ingredients to create an explosion, said Sgt. Steve Filippini of the Long Beach Police Department.

Police have declined to identify the substance, but said the firearms appeared to belong to the boys’ parents.

The students have since been suspended, with a recommendation for expulsion, said a school district spokesman. School officials also have beefed up security at Millikan.

On the same day that Long Beach police were questioning students at Millikan High, officers in Whittier were investigating an alleged death threat at St. Bruno Parish School. The investigation eventually resulted in a student’s removal from the private Roman Catholic school.

In an incident that Principal William Seals described as “a sick, improper joke,” a seventh-grade student reported that a written death threat had been stuffed into his backpack. While investigating the note, police said, they found that another student had been given a similar threat.

During the investigation, suspicion eventually fell on the student who first complained of the note. Among other things, police said the student made a hobby of drawing violent scenes in his notebook.

The student denied any involvement with the notes, and police eventually ended their investigation without an arrest.