Boy, 14, Arrested After Allegedly Threatening to Kill Classmates

In another eerie echo of last spring’s Columbine High School shootings, a 14-year-old boy at Trinity Lutheran School was arrested for allegedly threatening to bomb two classrooms and kill students who made fun of him, police said Tuesday.

The boy, whose name was withheld by authorities, was arrested Monday on suspicion of making a terrorist threat against the Reseda school. He was being held at Sylmar Juvenile Hall, said Det. William Seeley of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The boy admitted that he threatened fellow students who taunted him but said his comments “were meant as a joke,” according to West Valley detectives.

Under the California penal code, a suspect can be prosecuted for a terrorist threat made verbally, in writing, or via an electronic communication device, even if there is no intent to carry it out.

School Principal Jerry Romsa contacted authorities Monday after receiving an anonymous letter identifying the student and telling of his plans to kill fellow students and take over the school.

The letter also said the student had access to firearms. Students interviewed by detectives said the boy said he was going to bomb two classrooms and murder another student.

The boy’s father gave several rifles, which had had their firing mechanisms removed, to detectives.

Seeley said evidence so far indicated no other students were involved.

Unlike Columbine and other high schools where shootings have occurred, Trinity Lutheran is a small religious school with just nine teachers and 95 students from seventh through 12th grades. Students wear uniforms and have daily religion classes, including attending chapel on Wednesdays.

Principal Romsa said he did not know if the threats were real, but in today’s world, he could not afford to wait to find out.

“I don’t have the luxury of wondering, ‘How real is this?’ or ‘Is this someone who is just talking?’ ” Romsa said.

No one was evacuated and no evidence was found at the school, the principal said. The student voluntarily opened his locker for a police officer Monday, and there was nothing inside, Romsa said.

All appeared normal Tuesday at the Kittridge Street campus. Students played volleyball behind the cream-colored church, and backpacks were strewn under outside lockers.

Romsa said students prayed Tuesday morning for the student who allegedly made the threats and his family, but teachers did not discuss him by name. The principal ordered students not to talk to reporters.

Students at Trinity enjoy a rapport often lacking at larger high schools, Romsa said, but he never felt insulated from the violence that exploded April 20 in Littleton, Colo. Columbine students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, heavily armed with explosives and guns, opened fire, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 23 people. They then killed themselves.

“That’s what part of the sadness is,” Romsa said. “When you think of the movies they see, the music they listen to, a lot of the things they fill their minds with, they are influenced in a very negative way.”

A flurry of copycat crimes followed the Columbine shootings, many in Southern California.