Los Angeles County authorities race to thwart school shooting plot

LOS ANGELES — Just 48 hours after a gunman slaughtered 17 students and teachers in Parkland, Fla., El Camino High School security officer Marino Chavez overheard a troubling threat.

A 17-year-old student with an “extensive” disciplinary history said he planned to “shoot up” the Whittier campus within three weeks, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell.

Within hours, investigators searched the teen’s home and recovered two semi-automatic rifles, two handguns and 90 highcapacity magazines.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, McDonnell said he was grateful his officers had a chance to head off a potential tragedy.

“As we see these incidents occur one after another, we’re all looking to say how do we stop this?” McDonnell said.

The teen, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is being held on suspicion of making criminal threats, the sheriff said. His older brother, an Army veteran, claimed the weapons belonged to him and has been booked on suspicion of numerous crimes, including possession of an assault weapon, according to McDonnell.

Chavez said he became aware of the threat on Friday afternoon. The officer immediately confronted the teenager, who claimed he was only joking. The Sheriff’s Department was called and learned that a handgun was registered to the student’s home address, McDonnell said.

The student was angry about rules inside the classroom, Robert Jacobsen, an attorney for the NorwalkLa Mirada Unified School District, told reporters outside the school Wednesday in video posted by KCBS-TV.

“The teacher has expectations for the students to engage in learning during class time and told students to keep their cellphones and their earphones off so they can learn,” Jacobsen said. “And this student wasn’t happy about that. … At least what we understand at this time, it was simply over that.”

McDonnell said that although it was not clear how serious the student was about committing violence, after the attack in Florida, investigators’ “main interest was to avoid letting anything like that happen.”