2 Teenagers Charged With Conspiracy to Commit Murder

Two teenagers who authorities say were plotting a Columbine-style assault on their former high school were charged Monday with conspiracy to commit murder.

The boys, 15 and 17, allegedly planned to carry out the attack at Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley on Valentine’s Day. They were arrested Thursday after Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said they found knives, ammunition, a gas mask and bomb-making instructions at their homes.

Each was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit murder; the younger boy was also charged with making a criminal threat.

Both remained at the Sylmar Juvenile Detention Center. Their names were withheld because of their ages.

The pair had been transferred from Quartz Hill to other schools for disciplinary reasons. Authorities learned of the alleged plot after a student told her vice principal.

Last week, deputies at the sheriff’s station in Lancaster displayed a page from the 15-year-old’s notebook that bore the message, “When I’m God, everyone dies.”

It was accompanied by a three-ring binder containing pictures of Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted murderer Charles Manson.

Harris and Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide at Colorado’s Columbine High in 1999.