Student Accused Of Planting Bomb Could Be Tried As Adult
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - A student accused of bringing an explosive device to his Lafayette high school on Monday made his first appearance in court on Wednesday.
Centaurus High School was evacuated as dozens of police officers, FBI and ATF agents swept the school. The device found inside the school and carried outside by a teacher was detonated in an empty field near the school.
The judge ordered the 16-year-old to be held with no bond until the formal filing of charges next week. The Boulder County district attorney has until that time to decide if they are charging him as an adult or not.
CBS4 is not identifying the teen because he is still in juvenile court.
The parents of the suspect walked into the Boulder courthouse together. His father is a professor at the University of Colorado and his mother is a business woman whose been appointed by Gov. John Hickenlooper to attract international students to Colorado. Neither had a comment about their son being accused of bringing an explosive device to his high school.
Rachel Bacon, a fellow classmate of the suspect, says he started acting different over the past week and she even spotted him crying in the hallway.
"He was sitting there by himself and he looked like his eyes were really red and teary and watered up," Bacon said.
The student's parents appeared in front of the judge with their child whose hands were shackled to his waist. His mother patted her son on the back to comfort him.
"Anything that relates to safety of school children and safety of school buildings is something that is a very serious and we are going to look at it very carefully," Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said. "With a juvenile you're looking at the more complex issues of, what's the family situation? What might have been factors that led to what happened here?"
Neighbors in a Boulder Reservoir subdivision said on Monday police converged on the student's family home where detectives said they found more evidence, but have no motive. Fellow students though have their own theory.
"He seemed nice. I heard he was bullied a little often, so that might have been why he did some of the things he did," Bacon said.
The student will be back in court May 24 for the formal filing of charges.
