Edina High Schooler Responsible for Violent Threats Hoped to 'Cancel Classes'

The 17-year-old student responsible for making threats of violence against Edina High School earlier this month allegedly did so to get out of a day of classes, according to court documents.

Edina Police arrested the teen on Thursday, Oct. 4, after he allegedly wrote violent threats against his fellow EHS students online. The student faces one count of making terroristic threats, a felony level offense.

In a disturbing post on popular Internet forum 4chan, the anonymous user said he would "assault the school" using a sniper rifle from the nearby woods. The poster threatened to attack students in the school's common areas, then said he would "hit the school with an RPG like my friends in Libya." He also threatened to take his own life, provided he was not shot first.

The post also included a grim photograph of the two assailants who shot and killed fellow students before taking their own lives at Columbine High School in 1999.

According to a petition filed with Hennepin County, the boy was actually one of the first people to call the Edina Police Department to report the posting. He allegedly told police an unknown individual had hacked into his computer and posted the messages, making it appear as if he'd authored the posting.

When officers arrived at the teen's home, he told them he'd been doing his homework that evening on his laptop and lost power for a 40-minute window. He claimed the written threats had been posted online from his laptop during that time period, but denied authoring the post.

Police left the home do conduct further investigation, then returned to the boy's home to discuss the impact of the threats. At that point, police report the teen admitted to writing the post and said his intention "was to get the school to cancel classes the next day." He also acknowledged the post had been "a poor decision," according to the petition.

Shortly after being taken into custody, the boy asked to be allowed to get a sweatshirt from his bedroom. Officers said they walked with him to the room, where they observed what appeared to be a "high powered rifle which contained a scope" leaning against a wall. Upon closer inspection, police realized the weapon was actually a pellet gun that closely resembled a sniper rifle.

Court documents did include the name of the 17-year-old student, but Edina Patch has a policy of not printing the names of minors. While state law says information on suspects older than 16 years charged with a felony is public, we opted to not publish it as we did not feel his name added anything to the story.

Like Edina Patch on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | Sign up for our daily newsletter