Three Students Accused in Plot to “Shoot Up” Schools
School shootings are a source of great fear to parents the world over. Just the words “Columbine” and “Sandy Hook” can give a parent of school-aged children an anxiety attack. And one can hardly blame them. The thought of one’s children being shot, essentially by other children, is terrifying. Which is why the parents of Linden middle and high schools are so grateful to the Michigan State Police for foiling a plan hatched by three teens to allegedly “shoot up” the two schools.
Ryan Stevens, 18, Lamar Dukes, 15, and Cody Brewer, 15, the three teenagers who were allegedly planning to enter the schools, guns blazing, have been arrested. According to MSP reports, police were alerted to the plan because of an instagram message that was first found by the school resource officer on October 28th.
He then followed up on the information and wrote a detailed 24 page report containing all of the information he was able to gather. This report was submitted to the Argentine Township Police and the FBI. According to the information, the massacre was to be carried out on October 30th, just two days later, by Stevens and possible accomplices.
There was, it seems, a plan for the three to enter both Linden High School and Linden Middle School with weaponry and kill a number of students. Any who got in the way of that goal, say detectives, would simply be viewed as collateral damage.
An investigation was opened and Stevens, a former student of Linden, was arrested. Apparently the evidence revealed that there was a credible threat. The plan included the purchase of weaponry and specific targets who were named. The investigation then led to the later arrest of Dukes and Brewer.
Because the threat was discovered before anything actually happened, the two schools were never placed on lockdown. In a statement released by the school they explained their choice as follows, “Based on the information we were given, and communication with law enforcement, it was decided that the situation did not call for a “secure-mode” or “lock down.”
All three boys are being charged as adults. And all three face charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree premeditated murder and false report or threat of terrorism, both of which are very serious felonies. Stevens is currently being held at the Genesee County Jail. Due to their minor status, both Dukes and Brewer are being held in the Genesee Regional Detention Center in Flint.