Bomb-Plot Suspect Was Bullied, Lawyer Says

The lawyer for one of two Lawndale High School students accused of plotting to explode a pipe bomb on campus said Tuesday that her client was being bullied by classmates who wanted him to enter a gang and that the boy never intended to carry out the attack.

The lawyer said a psychological evaluation commissioned by the 14-year-old’s parents found he is suffering depression as a result of being bullied. He fantasized about making a bomb to overcome a sense of powerlessness, said lawyer Andrea Tytell.

“He was drowning in pain,” she said.

The boy, along with his cousin, were taken into custody March 21 after students told a school security guard that the youths were acting strangely and making bizarre threats.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said they subsequently found a journal in the possession of one of the boys filled with the names of students and teachers they may have been targeting. A nearly completed explosive device that authorities believe was a pipe bomb was also found at one of the suspects’ homes, along with instructions downloaded from the Internet. The instructions incorrectly described the ingredients for homemade gunpowder, and the device was never completed.

The boys were arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats and conspiracy and have been ordered held in juvenile hall. Their names have not been released because they are minors.

Detectives allege the teenagers planned to detonate the bomb around the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting later this month.

Investigators have said little about the suspects other than that they were subjected to taunts at school and came from “good, loving homes with good parents.”

Tytell has been hired to represent the boy in district expulsion hearings, not in criminal proceedings. She and the boy’s parents describe him as an excellent student and accomplished soccer player. They say he was anguished at being picked on at school but hid these feelings from his parents. The boy’s grades plummeted between the first and second semester -- a red flag that school officials should have noticed, they say.

“The district didn’t do anything,” Tytell said. “They dropped the ball.”

School officials did not return several calls seeking comment.

The high school’s hallways have been buzzing with talk of the arrests, although the school has made no formal announcement to the student body, students said Tuesday.

“I didn’t think it would affect me because I didn’t think it would happen,” said a 16-year-old sophomore, who was in the same class as one of the suspects. “He seems like the type that’s all talk.”