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A 12-year-old boy is accused of plotting to shoot students and others at his Dallas charter school after he was found clutching a detailed diagram outlining the planned attack, a police commander said.
The plan was uncovered when the boy showed the handwritten diagram to another student who then alerted administrators at Trinity Basin Preparatory, according to Assistant Police Chief Randall Blankenbaker. The boy was still clutching the diagram when he was taken to an office at the public charter school.
He was arrested and charged Thursday with a felony count of exhibition of a firearm and was being held at a juvenile detention center. The boy had no weapon with him at school and it's not clear if he had access to firearms elsewhere. Authorities say he was charged simply because he threatened to use a firearm to harm others.
"A reasonable person would see this diagram and they would believe that he intended to carry out his threats based on what's on the diagram," Blankenbaker said at a news conference Thursday evening.
Blankenbaker said the boy had tried several time to recruit the second student to help him carry out the attack, but his threats were dismissed as a joke until he showed that other boy the diagram.
Blankenbaker described the second student as "courageous" for alerting school administrators.
The incident was the second in about a week involving a threatened attack on a Dallas-area school. A 15-year-old boy was arrested after police say he threatened to open fire at a high school in Forney, east of Dallas, The Dallas Morning News reported.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
The latest on heavy rains sparking flooding in Central and South Texas (all times local):
11:45 a.m.
The Austin airport has temporarily closed its airfield due to torrential rains and heavy winds rolling through Central Texas.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said in a tweet that no flights are taking off or landing due to weather, though the airport remains open.
Fast-moving rainstorms Friday morning soaked San Marcos and other communities south of Austin, as well as the Texas capital. Water on the road forced police and emergency officials to close several miles of Interstate 35 south of Austin. That compelled southbound traffic to turn around and head north using the shoulder and what are normally southbound lanes.
Traffic moving south was backed up for miles, including in Buda, about 20 miles south of downtown Austin.
A possible tornado also destroyed some buildings in Wilson, Medina and Guadalupe counties.
CORSICANA, Texas (AP) —
Cleanup crews are dumping gravel to firm up an area near two overturned locomotives that derailed during North Texas flooding.
A Union Pacific spokesman said Tuesday that crews are working to rebuild track washed away during storms north of Corsicana.
Two crewmembers swam to safety after much of the 64-car train derailed early Saturday during storms that left behind about 20 inches of rain.
Spokesman Jeff DeGraff (duh-GRAF') says track repairs began Sunday afternoon with crews hauling in gravel, by truck or rail car, as far down as the track would allow. DeGraff says tracks were damaged or washed away on several spots along a 15-mile stretch.
The freight cars, bound from Midlothian to Houston, were hauling loose gravel when the train derailed about 50 miles south of Dallas.