Sunday, August 20, 2017

SHOOTINGS: SOME SUCCESS--FOILED ATTACK


The fact that a number of school shootings have be interrupted and stopped is overlooked. Here is an example of where an an alert citizen saw unusual activity and alerted police.

A mass school shooting in Wascea, Minnesota was foiled on April 24, 2014 when a woman called 911 to report a young man apparently breaking into a storage unit. The young man was John LaDue, an 11th grader who was planning to carry out one of the worst, if not the worst, school shootings in this nation’s history. Authorities found bomb-making equipment in the storage unit and in his school locker. The police also discovered LaDue’s bedroom was an arsenal, two guns near his bed and five in a safe in his closet.

LaDue planned to start by killing his parents and his sister and then carry out a school shooting patterned on Columbine. Indeed, in the year before his arrest, he had become fascinated with the suburban Colorado school shooting, going so far as to buy a black duster jacket so he could dress like Eric Harris. LaDue also studied the Boston Marathon bombing and the Newtown, Connecticut massacre.

LaDue considered Adam Lanza a coward for killing first graders, but Dylon Klebold and Eric Harris were his heroes. 


In September 2015, John LaDue pled guilty to a single felony count of illegal possession of an explosive. The press reported that five felony counts of possessing incendiary devices were dropped in a plea deal to avoid prison. The young man will have to undergo up to 10 years of court-ordered treatment at a secure treatment facility for autism spectrum disorder in Atlanta, Georgia. (To be continued)

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