Viral News
Two 17-Year-Old Boys Among Four Arrested For Plotting AK-47 Massacre At Texas School
Four People Arrested For Plotting AK-47 Massacre At Texas School Days After Uvalde Shooting
Two 17-year-old boys were among four people arrested for plotting an AK-47 massacre at a school in southern Texas.
Nathaniel Montelongo and Barbarito Pantoja, both 17, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. They are being held on a $750,000 bond and their mugshots were released Thursday evening.
Two other students, both minors, were also arrested in connection to the plot and will face a judge on Friday, The Brownsville Herald reported. The four were arrested after police in Donna, a small community in the Rio Grande Valley, received an anonymous type that they were planning to attack the school. Officials declined to reveal which district campus was targeted in the plot.
View this post on Instagram
A source familiar with the investigation told the newspaper on Wednesday that cops had found an AK-47 and a list of targeted students in the home of one of the suspects. However, on Thursday police denied the existence of the alleged hit list and refused to provide any details about a potential weapons seizure, citing that the information was ‘critical to the case’ and ‘will not be disseminated.’
News of the plot, which prompted a shutdown order at the school late Wednesday, came a day after a gunman slaughtered 19 kids and two teachers at an elementary in Uvalde, about 300 miles north of Donna. Police held a press conference on Thursday announcing the arrests.
‘We stopped an act of physical violence and harm on our students,’ Donna Police Department Chief Donald Crist said during the briefing. He said the two adult males, referring to Montelongo and Pantoja, had been arraigned, but noted the other suspects would face a juvenile magistrate.
Authorities, who reiterated that the threat against the school was ‘credible,’ denied the rumors circulating on social media about a list targeting specific students. ‘There was no target list. There was supposedly some rumors going around, but there was no such thing,’ Police Chief Gilbert Guerrero said, according to KVEO-TV.
You must be logged in to post a comment logged in Login