Three US high-school students were arrested today and charged with planning a deadly assault on their high school that they allegedly promised would be "bigger than Columbine," police said.
In a plan that echoed the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, the three planned to detonate a bomb and then gun down teachers and students as they fled the school before shooting themselves, police said.
A letter outlining the plot was found by a school janitor, police said.
Eric McKeehan, 17, and two juveniles who were not identified will be arraigned tmorrow.
Police started investigating the plot last month after a student told a teacher of rumors that an assault was planned, New Bedford Police Chief Arthur Kelly was quoted as saying by The Boston Globe.
"The verbal threats brought up Columbine, that it will be bigger than Columbine," Kelly told the Globe.
Police searched the students' homes and found bomb-making directions, shotgun shells, knives and a flare gun. They also found photographs of at least one of them with weapons, the newspaper reported.
The three face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and possession of ammunition.
On April 20th, 1999, two students armed with assault weapons killed 12 students, one teacher and themselves at Columbine High School in one of the worst instances of school violence in US history.