Police on Wednesday said they had prevented an attack on a Tampa high school after arresting an expelled student and discovering materials at his home to make pipe bombs.
"We were probably able to thwart a potentially catastrophic event the likes of which the city of Tampa has not seen," Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor told a news conference.
Police named the suspect, who was detained and charged on Tuesday, as 17-year-old Jared Cano and said his target was Freedom High School.
Castor said Cano, who was expelled from the school in 2010, had hoped "to cause more casualties than were suffered at Columbine" — a reference to the 1999 massacre at a Colorado high school by two students who killed 12 peers and a teacher.
Authorities said Cano has multiple juvenile arrests. Charges have included burglary, carrying a concealed weapon, altering serial numbers on a firearm and drug possession. All have been either dismissed or no action has been taken.
Acting on a tip from an informant Tuesday morning, police learned that Cano had been planning his attack to take place on the first day of class next Tuesday, Castor said. Two faculty members were specifically targeted, she added. Two days before he was arrested Cano posted on his Facebook that his friend had tried to connect to a wireless network and spied a wifi network named "FBI_SURVEILLANCE_VAN."
Cano's mother, a math teacher at another Tampa high school, consented to a police search of the family home on Tuesday.
Evidence found in the search included a "manifesto" with drawings of school rooms and statements apparently indicating his intention to carry out a deadly attack, authorities said.
Police also found timing and fusing devices, and other material that could have been used to make a bomb such as fuel sources, shrapnel and plastic tubing, Castor said.
Thank God this guy was caught before he did some serious damage. But lost in the story is how the FBI tips off the whole world that they are on your case. The surveillance team uses a wireless network named "FBI_SURVEILLANCE_VAN. Is the FBI really so dumb that they gave themselves away to a mark like this? And when the climb out of their van are they wearing windbreakers with FBI in giant letters on the back? As it turns out there are a lot of smart asses out there that name their wifi FBI SURVEILLANCE VAN. It was all just a coincidence.
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