Vancouver 11-year-old charged with attempted murder
Oct 29, 2013, 9:48 AM | Updated: 11:17 am
The Vancouver boy who took a gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition to his middle school last week will face an attempted murder charge. (Google Maps)
(Google Maps)
The Vancouver boy who took a gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition to his middle school last week will face an attempted murder charge.
The Clark County Juvenile Court decided last week that the 11-year-old boy should face an attempted assault charge, but the Prosecutor’s Office has filed an attempted murder charge against him.
The boy also faces charges of stealing a firearm, unlawful possession and having a gun at school.
Newly released court documents suggest the 6th grader at Frontier Middle School had planned for more than a week to kill a classmate that he believed was bullying a friend. Vancouver Police detectives say the boy’s friends say he brought the gun, 436 rounds of ammunition and seven knives to school on Monday and Tuesday of last week.
He allegedly planned to shoot the classmate while everyone waited for the afternoon buses because he wanted everyone to see.
Police say the reason he didn’t carry out the attack on those days was because he couldn’t disengage the safety on the .22 caliber handgun. He had figured it out by Wednesday, the day he was arrested.
According to police, the boy was going to open fire during band class early in the morning but decided to wait until later in the day.
He told detectives that a voice kept telling him that shooting the classmate was what he needed to do.
A mental health evaluation of the boy has been completed, and a Clark County court administrator is deciding whether the boy should be released to his parents pending trial.
