Two teenage girls who were arrested on suspicion of plotting a mass shooting at a Riverside County high school had revenge in mind and a list of students and teachers they planned to target, according to authorities.
On Oct. 6, the FBI alerted the Corona Police Department about social media conversations about a threat to Corona High School, leading to the arrest of a 15-year-old girl, according to a department news release. Officials then identified a second suspect, a 15-year-old girl who attended Norco High School, according to the release.
The names of the suspects were not released because of their age. The date of the attack was not specified, according to the release.
On Thursday, Corona Police Lt. Robert Montanez said the teens wrote down a list of students and teachers at Corona High School they intended to target, but he didn’t know the specific names and how many people were listed.
“It did seem like the plan was a focused attack on the school itself, and while they may have had specific people listed, the overarching goal was an attack on the school,” he added.
The girls also researched how to obtain firearms, although none was collected for the attack, Montanez said. They also researched past school shootings and incidents, but Montanez didn’t have information about what specific attacks the girls looked into.
Montanez said revenge appeared to be a motivating factor in the planned attack, but he didn’t have further details. He also didn’t know how the teens knew each other and for how long.
“While revenge does appear to be the motive, I am of course neither of these girls or the investigators and I’m not privy to the statement that was given,” he said. “I can’t speak to their specific mindset or what was said by them.”
The two teens allegedly spent months researching school shootings and talking about how to carry out an attack at Corona High School, according to the news release.
Both teens are in custody on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, the release states. The Riverside County district attorney’s office is reviewing the case.
Montanez noted that the case appears to be unusual because mass shooting plots are most often conceived and carried out by male suspects.
“I think historically speaking, the vast majority of people who commit these kind of offenses and who follow through on mass shooting incidents are generally male,” he said. “Also if memory services, the majority of times it’s a single suspect, so this kind of thing is unusual given that they’re female and there’s two of them.
“I think we’re fortunate here with how this one shook out with the stopgaps in place to allow this information be shared from a social media platform with a law enforcement agency,” Montanez said. “I think it worked in this case, and we’re fortunate that everything worked out the way it did here.”
The post Teen girls listed teacher and student targets for planned Riverside County school shooting, officials say appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
