2 Students Arrested Over Plot

Two 15-year-old students in a school district south of the capital have been arrested, averting what police said was a plan to open fire on a group of students during lunch Wednesday.

The boys -- a freshman and a sophomore -- had planned to steal guns from a sporting goods store and set off explosives in Laguna Creek High School’s cafeteria, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday. The campus is in the Elk Grove Unified School District.

The boys had not obtained any weapons or explosives, police said, but they had access to a .22-caliber rifle at the home of one of them.

Police also found a hand-drawn map of the school cafeteria and hate drawings including swastikas, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Lou Fatur.

One of the targeted students was an African American girl, prompting police to label the case a hate crime. But Fatur said it wasn’t clear that all the students had been targeted on the basis of race. “These kids were pretty angry at a lot of people,” Fatur said. Both of the arrested students are white, and at least one was new to the high school.

A tip led to the Monday and Tuesday morning arrests. Both boys remained in custody Tuesday. Four other students were still being questioned by police, who initially determined that the youths had some knowledge of the planning but no direct involvement, said district Supt. Dave Gordon.