The three teens arrested after the Thursday incident at Duchesne High School have been referred to juvenile court for threat of terrorism. According to Duchesne County Sheriff’s Office, a 15-year-old and two 14-year-olds are being held at Split Mountain Youth Detention Center in connection with the incident that resulted in a lockdown at Duchesne High School on Thursday. Duchesne Elementary School was also put on lockdown as a precaution. At about 1:40pm on Thursday, a small group of students told Duchesne High School Principal Stan Young that an attack was about to take place similar to the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, according to Lt. Dela Rowley. “The students provided Young with the names of three students involved in planning the attack and specifically mentioned Columbine.” Two deputies were at the school within minutes and one teenage boy was brought into custody at gunpoint within nine minutes of the dispatch call. A search of the entire campus took place as additional law enforcement arrived, including a search by a Uintah County K-9 that is trained to detect explosives. No firearms or explosives were found. Deputies found one small knife each on two of the teens, shared Lt. Rowley, as well as one hand-drawn diagram of how to build an explosive device and another with plans for building an improvised firearm. Detectives interviewed the three teens separately and the boys were cooperative “but didn’t think this was a big deal,” shared Lt. Rowley. One teen admitted he was supposed to be “the shooter” and the other two teens were “the bombers”. Search warrants of the boys’ bedrooms were executed on Thursday night, seizing electronics that were then taken to the Utah State Crime Lab for analysis on Friday. The three teens were referred to 8th District Juvenile Court on one count each of threat of terrorism. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information about the incident are asked to contact Lt. Rowley at
435-738-2015
.
