Father: Teen never intended to attack Spanaway school

05:25 PM PST on Wednesday, December 1, 2004

From KING5.com Staff and Wire Reports

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - One of the three teens arrested Tuesday for allegedly plotting a violent takeover of his school reportedly told his father that it was all just a scare tactic.

Richard Turner, father of the 18-year-old arrested said his son told him from jail that he never intended to carry out the attack, but just wanted to scare people to prevent them from bullying him.

"He says, 'Dad, I wasn't going to do anything wrong … as far as actually going through with it he says, 'I couldn't do it'."

Turner's son, an 18-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, all Spanaway Lake High School students, are being held after their arrest Wednesday.

All three students are members of the ROTC. They face charges of threatening to bomb and injure.

In and interview with KING 5 News, Richard and Barb Turner struggled to understand what went wrong.

Turner said his son may have mental problems, but he never intended to hurt anyone.

He described his son as two extremes, a quiet boy who would draw pictures of oceans and lighthouses, but also an angry and unpredictable young man.

"He'd get real angry real quick and take a long time to calm down," Turner.

KING

Richard Turner says his son told him he never intended to carry an attack police say the teen and two others planned against Spanaway Lake High School.

Nevertheless, he said he did not find it surprising that his son would plan to blow up a school and kill people.

"No, that didn't surprise me none," Turner said.

The suspects reportedly told police they we're plotting revenge after years of bullying Barb Turner says went unpunished by school officials.

"They would throw him into lockers, bruise his face and make his back sore and they go, 'we don't know what's going on'," she said.

At the family's mobile home alongside a shooting range, Turner said his son became obsessed with war and combat. But the man thought his son was just going through a phase until he started asking questions.

"The boy told me 'keep your nose out of our business or we'll fix it so you won't be around to stick your nose in business no more'," Turner said his son told him.

That prompted the father to call school officials, who later unraveled the alleged plot.

"He was making comments about being anti-government and wanting to burn flags and take over buildings. He was being very generic, but it stilled disturbed the parent enough to make a phone call," Pierce County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ed Troyer said.

Police later found later found a notebook with detailed drawings of the school, attack methods, including ways to kill responding police.

After their arrest, the teens reportedly told police that they planned the attack to show that the government cannot protect people and as revenge for being bullied.

The students did not appear to have obtained weapons or explosives, but had reportedly laid out plans to take over police stations to get their hands on high-end weaponry.

"None of them ever said it was game or it was any type of fantasy. They all were pretty dead set that this was going to happen some day," Troyer said.

The teens' arraignments are scheduled for Thursday.

KING 5's Eric Wilkinson contributed to this report