The following appeared in the newspaper this morning:
A 17-year-old Highlands School student was in jail Thursday on charges that he had developed a hit list, naming several fellow students he supposedly planned to kill.
Highlands police say they arrested Andrew Douglas Quintero, a junior, without incident on Wednesday and charged him with 10 misdemeanor counts of communicating threats.
In an interview Thursday, Highlands School principal Jack Brooks indicated he wasn't sure whether the student intended to carry out the threats, but said he wasn't taking any chances.
"Whether this was done out of humor or it was an expression of anger, I had no idea," Brooks said. "What we think, say and write have a different level of intent sometimes, and few of us are in a position to determine whether this is reality. But we had to take it seriously. The goal here, of course, is to maintain the safety of the school."
Quintero, who was placed in the Macon County Detention Center Wednesday, received a 10-day school suspension — the remainder of the academic year. Whether that suspension will be extended into the next school year will likely be up to the superintendent's office, Brooks said.
Unlike other acts that educators fear could lead to violence — such as possession of firearms on campus, which automatically mandates a one-year suspension — there are no state-required parameters for suspension when it comes to communicating threats.
Brooks, meanwhile, said he first heard of the so-called hit list on Tuesday night when another student contacted him to tell him about it. Several students named on the list at the less-than-500-pupil, K-12 school had apparently heard about it through word of mouth, Brooks said, and were worried both about their safety and for Quintero's emotional well-being.
Brooks said he called Quintero into his office on Wednesday, where he conducted a search and found a loose sheet of paper that included the neatly typed names of the students Quintero had supposedly planned to kill. He said the student was contrite when told that his classmates had become fearful for their safety.
"You never envision any of your own students doing something like this," Brooks said. "But I think people need to know that Highlands is not a sanctuary from the rest of the world. Anything that can happen in other places can happen here."
Brooks indicated he was in favor of meting out some form of punishment for Quintero. But he also requested that law enforcement get the student any counseling he may need.
"This is an individual who needed assistance," Brooks said. "He has a lot of potential for a lot of different things. And I hope the legal system can take the right course with him and look at him as a person who needs help, not as someone to be made an example of."
Quintero is the second Macon County student in the last two months to be arrested and suspended for actions that administrators feared posed a threat to other students. In March, a Macon Middle School seventh grader was arrested and received a state-mandated one-year suspension for bringing a .25-caliber handgun to school. His case is still in the juvenile justice system.
I just wanted to get your views on this. Personaly I am thankful that someone took his threats seriously and now this boy will get the help he needs. I fear too many times a blind eye is turned in such cases. But boy oh boy what a wake up call. I thought I would be protected back here in these backwoods.
wendy