RUTLAND, VT (WCAX/CNN) – A Vermont teen is facing charges after police said he threatened to shoot up his former high school.
Police spent days trying to unravel the plot.
Eighteen-year-old Jack Sawyer walked into Rutland Court in camouflage and handcuffs Friday afternoon, charged with plotting to carry out a mass shooting at his former high school.
"There's been 18 school shootings since January 1,” said Chief Bill Humphries of the Fair Haven Police Department. “And you always think, in my career, like, ‘This is Fair Haven. It's not going to happen here.’"
Humphries said police were first alerted to the threat earlier in the week. Someone told police on Monday they heard Sawyer was acting strangely and had made threats against Fair Haven Union High School.
Police were also told Sawyer had bought a shotgun at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Rutland, along with ammo.
But when police spoke to Sawyer on Wednesday, he told them the gun was for target practice and he said he hadn’t made any threats against the school in the past two years.
"We had found no probable cause to make an arrest," Humphries said.
But that changed the next day when a juvenile from New York alerted police to disturbing text messages from Sawyer, reading in part, “Just a few days ago I was still plotting on shooting up my old high school…”
And then, in response to the school shooting in Florida: “That’s fantastic. I 100% support it…I think the human population sucks so I like to hear about cases of natural selection…it’s just natural selection taken up a notch.”
Humphries called the informant a hero.
"This is a classic example of the person who came forward, from out of state, is the true hero out of this because they put aside everything else to say, 'I think there's a problem,’” Humphries said. “And based on that, it allowed law enforcement to intervene and avert a potential disaster."
Sawyer allegedly confessed to his plot during an interview with police.
He told police he’d gone to the high school for his freshman and part of his sophomore year before running away and eventually being sent away for mental health treatment in Maine.
Sawyer also allegedly told police he was obsessed with the Columbine High School shootings and had researched them extensively. Police said Sawyer told them he bought a shotgun recently as part of his plot to shoot up Fair Haven High School.
Sawyer allegedly told police he planned to take out the school resource officer first and then use an AR-15 and other guns to kill as many students as he could before taking his own life.
And he allegedly told police he wasn’t sure when he was going to carry out the plan, but he would, no matter what.
"We have to go forward with our lives and just be strong, be vigilant and alert, and realize that things happen in a small town," Humphries said.
Sawyer faces charges of aggravated attempted murder, attempted first-degree murder and attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
He pleaded not guilty Friday in court. He’s being held without bail until an evidence hearing later this month.
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