2 Teens Arrested For Columbine-Like Plot

Two teenagers were charged with conspiring to attack their Long Island high school after a chilling journal and videotape surfaced in which one teen identifies several potential victims by name, authorities said Friday.

"I will start a chain of terrorism in the world," a 15-year-old suspected of planning the assault allegedly wrote in the journal, which led to his arrest. "This will go down in history. Take out everyone there. Perfecto."

Police found that the teen had already tried several times to buy weapons online, including five pounds of explosive black powder and an Uzi. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said Friday that officers were still trying to determine "if any weapons have been acquired over the Internet."

The two teens planned to attack Connetquot High School in Bohemia, N.Y., about 50 miles east of New York City, Dormer said. Both were charged with misdemeanor conspiracy, punishable by up to a year in jail. A search warrant was issued for the 15-year-old's computer.

School authorities obtained the handwritten journal on July 6 and helped police connect it to the 15-year-old, who had been suspended from the school, authorities said.

Written inside were "numerous terrorist threats and plans to attack the school on a future date," police said in a statement. It said the plans included threats to shoot students and staff and to ignite homemade explosions.

An anonymous woman found the notebook lying in a McDonald's parking lot in Bohemia, reports Newsday. In one journal entry, Newsday reports, a drawing depicts a pipe bomb exploding at the school, and students lying dead on the ground. According to police, the teen wrote, "Students will die. Ha ... I want to leave a lasting impression on the world."

Dormer said a videotape made by the same teen "was akin to the tapes that we all saw from Columbine." In that 1999 attack, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

The other teen arrested, identified as 17-year-old acquaintance Michael McDonough of Bohemia, appeared Friday in county criminal court. The judge instructed probation officials to interview him before deciding on bail, said Bob Clifford, a spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney's office.

Neighbors in the mobile home park where McDonough lives described him as "a nice boy" who did odd jobs for them like mowing lawns.

The 15-year-old was scheduled to appear in juvenile court later Friday.

More than 2,000 students attend Connetquot High School in Bohemia, a working-class community near Brookhaven on the eastern end of Long Island. The plans included threats to shoot students and staff, and to ignite homemade explosions, reports Newsday.