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Clermont student's notebook shows plot to kill teachers

A sixth-grader's hand-drawn map of East Ridge Middle School contains 'X' marks where he planned to kill his teachers and himself in front of his peers. The student was stopped before anyone was hurt. (PHOTO/Lake County Sheriff's Office)

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By Dave D'Marko and Mike Westfall, Team Coverage
Last Updated: Thursday, May 29, 2014, 5:51 PM

View Documents

• All documents in PDF format
  • School map showing locations of planned killings
  • Outline of student's plan
  • Witness 1 Statement
  • Witness 2 Statement
  • Witness 3 Statement

Previous Story

• Clermont 6th-grader planned to kill teachers, self

map of area

• East Ridge Middle School
  Clermont
  

CLERMONT --  Now we are actually seeing a student’s plan to kill teachers, staff, and himself at East Ridge Middle School, at his Lake County school.
At least one page of the plan was covered in blood, and included this map of East Ridge Middle School, each target marked with an "x" where he planned to shoot five teachers.
Tonight, there also are still questions tonight about why parents weren’t notified when the plot was discovered 10 days ago.
School officials are saying they don’t think students were ever in danger; despite the fact that he had a knife.
When the boy showed his "hit list" and other plans to classmates, they said some of the pages were covered in blood.
Law enforcement released the handwritten notes of that middle school student that Lake County investigators say detailed a plot of exactly how the boy planned to kill his teachers and others at East Ridge Middle School in Clermont.
Three students say the boy showed them what he called a little black book, filled with plans for world domination, drawing of guns and dead people.
While he was showing the pages covered in blood, new reports say the student pulled at a knife and smiled.
That little black book also contained a map the boy drew of the school and a list of the five teachers the student planned to kill, along with the following:
Come in through grass area.
Go to office, kill everyone there.
Then go to math/history building, kill [redacted], [redacted].
Go to science building, [redacted].
Go to [redacted].
Leave.
It said he’d start by killing everyone in the office, then go to the math and history buildings killing two teachers. The next x was a science teacher, followed by drama teacher.
We have redacted the names of the teachers listed in the notebook, in accordance with our Crime Guidelines.
Deputies say the last part of his plan was to kill himself in front of his classmates in the cafeteria.
What’s upset parents, is they were never told about the situation.
"I mean if your son or daughter was a student here don't you think you'd want to know," concerned parent Rodney Belding said.
Today I found out there are no policies outlining what the school has to tell parents, it’s left up to principals.
"You have to be aware of what's going on at the school, I mean as a parent you have to," Chris Persad said. "You can't hide things and when they happen people are going to say oh my God! It's crazy."
Sheriff’s deputies went to the child’s home where they found no weapons. A school spokesperson says the knife the student had wasn’t a weapon either, but it is classified as a dangerous instrument.
According to the sheriff’s report he was suspended for ten days, and was in the process of being placed in an alternative school.
Citing student confidentiality rules a school spokesperson couldn’t tell me the student's status at this point. According to the Sheriff’s Office report however he was being taken to Lifestream here in Lake County for a psychiatric evaluation.