MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Police say an attentive student helped foil an alleged school shooting plot at a Vermont middle school.
The principal at Middlebury Union Middle School called police Saturday after a student overheard two other students plotting to shoot a fourth student at the school, investigators said.
The two students were planning to get guns from a relative and bring them to school Tuesday, police said. Another student also told police about the plot on Monday.
“We definitely need brave, strong individuals to come forward and talk to us and let us know what’s going on,” Middlebury Police Det. Kristine Bowdish told WCAX-TV.
One suspect was taken to a hospital for psychiatric treatment and placed in the custody of the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
Prosecutors seized guns from the relative’s home.
Parent Michelle Warner said she first heard about the shooting threat from her son, who is an eighth-grader. He was generally unfazed, she said.
“I think you just hear so much about it now that it’s nothing new, even though it’s never happened here, per se,” she said. It’s worrisome to send children anywhere nowadays, she said.
Police are still investigating but said there is no longer a threat to the school. The students’ names have not been released.
This year, a Vermont teen was accused of plotting a shooting with mass casualties at his former high school in Fair Haven in a case that led to the first significant limits on gun ownership in Vermont. The most serious charges against him were dropped after the Vermont Supreme Court ruled his preparations for the shooting did not meet Vermont’s definition of a crime.
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