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Updated April 21, 2008
 

Teen accused of plotting to bomb school appeared to act alone
Threat keeps more than half of student body from school
Morning News, WBTW News13

Although investigators said it appears a high school senior who planned to carry out a Columbine-inspired attack was acting alone, only about half of the students enrolled at the school attended classes Monday.

More than 600 students are enrolled at Chesterfield County High School, Chesterfield County School Superintendent Dr. John Williams said. But after Saturday’s arrest of the alleged plotter, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger of Mount Croghan, about 300 students didn’t come to school Monday morning.

A School Resource Officer is normally assigned to patrol the high school every day. On Monday, 27 law enforcement officers were at the school, which Williams said has been thoroughly inspected using bomb-sniffing dogs and was equipped with metal detectors borrowed from the Chesterfield County Courthouse.

“This is shock to all of us,” Williams said. “Chesterfield High School is a well-run school with good students with good discipline.”

Freshman Kelli Little, 15, of Chesterfield said the empty school and the addition of the metal detectors created a strange atmosphere at the school.

“It feels a lot different,” she said. “It feels really weird.”

Kelli’s mother, Jennifer Weaver, came to pick her up from school about 10 a.m.

“I personally felt that it was important that everything would go on as usual ... but there’s nothing normal about the situation. To have them here just to have them here is pointless.

The school’s office was lined with students calling their parents to be picked up from school. The school district’s public information officer, Ken Buck, said officials would not cancel classes, no matter how few students were left.

“There’s just way too many distractions to have school today,” Weaver said.

Meanwhile, Schallenberger remains in custody at the Chesterfield County Detention Center awaiting a bond hearing, scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday. Because he lives with his parents and has no job, his attorney, William Spencer of Chesterfield, was appointed by the court, 4th Circuit Solicitor Jay Hodge said.

Chesterfield County Sheriff Sam Parker said Schallenberger faces a single criminal charge under the state’s bomb threat statute, but additional charges are pending and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been contacted.

Schallenberger’s parents called police after 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate were delivered to their home in Chesterfield and they discovered a disturbing journal. Parker said there’s nothing to stop anyone from purchasing less than 900 pounds of the substance.

Ammonium nitrate used widely in fertilizers and explosives, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The commercial grade contains about 33.5 percent nitrogen, all of which is in forms utilizable by plants; it is the most common nitrogenous component of artificial fertilizers. Ammonium nitrate also is employed to modify the detonation rate of other explosives, such as nitroglycerin in the so-called ammonia dynamites, or as an oxidizing agent in the ammonals, which are mixtures of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum.

Videos showing how to make a bomb using the substance can be found on the YouTube Web site.

Other than the bomb-making material, no other weapons were found at his home, Chesterfield Police Chief Randall Lear said.

Schallenberger kept a journal for more than a year that detailed his plans for a suicide attack and included maps of the school, police said. The writings did not include a specific time for the attack or the intended targets.

The teen planned to make several bombs and had all the supplies needed to kill dozens, depending on where the devices were placed and whether they included shrapnel, Lear said. Ammonium nitrate was used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people.

In his writings, Schallenberger said he admired the two teens who killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 before committing suicide, Lear said. The attack happened nine years ago Sunday, but Parker it doesn’t appear the attack at Chesterfield High was planned to coincide with that date.

Schallenberger also left an audio tape that was to be played after he died explaining why he wanted to bomb his school. Lear wouldn’t detail what was on the tape except to say Schallenberger was an angry young man.

Parker said the tape indicated that the attack was to have been carried out Monday morning, and that by the time it was played, “it would all be over.”

“He seemed to hate the world,” Lear said. “He hated people different from him — the rich boys with good-looking girlfriends.”

Schallenberger was one of the top students at the high school and had not caused any serious problems before his arrest, principal Scott Radkin said.

The school’s Web site lists Schallenberger as a member of the 2007 academic bowl squad. He also was named a Newberry College Scholar in 2006-07.

According to the Newberry College Web site, the rewards for being a Newberry Scholar/Leader are a scholarship to Newberry College worth $8500 per year for four years; having the college application fee waived; special recognition from the President, faculty and staff of Newberry College; special invitations to include: a tour hosted by President Zais, athletic events, and other activities around campus for free; and unique access to a special Newberry Scholar/Leader Web site to network with other scholars and leaders from around the state and receive other news from the college.

Schallenberger, like many teens, has an account on MySpace, a popular Internet social networking Web site. It indicates he last logged in on Wednesday, but posted no blogs (Web journals), photos or videos and has no friends listed other than the Web site’s creator, who is automatically added to someone’s friends list when he or she establishes an account. Schallenberger listed his general interests as “sports, money” and his occupation as “metalist.”

Schallenberger also was featured in The Progressive Journal, Pageland’s weekly newspaper, in a Nov. 20 column by staff writer John Davis. In the column, Davis details how Schallenberger shadowed him on the job for a day, acting as a newspaper photographer.

Chesterfield is a town of about 1,500 people in northeastern South Carolina near the North Carolina line.

Search continues for Pageland administrator
Posted by the Progressive Journal

Another candidate for town administrator withdrew his resume this week.

Monday morning, Michael Shiverski, a former “village administrator” for Bethel, Ohio, told Town Clerk Linda Long that he was no longer interested in the job.

Pageland Mayor Pro-Tem Martha Hamilton said she was surprised by Shiverksi’s decision.

“When I spoke with him he seemed very excited about coming,” Hamilton said. “His parents lived in Columbia, and he was going to be closer to his parents.”

Shiverski was the second person offered the job of town administrator this month.

Town Council’s first choice, Larry Stoever, the former town manager of manager of Saline, Mi., declined a job offer April 4.

Hamilton said she thought council should continue with its initial four candidates for administrator.

“They were all good candidates,” she said. “I think any one of them would serve the town well.”

Pageland has been without a full-time administrator since the departure of Cecil Kimrey in 2006.

In 2007 the town hired two part-time administrators. Miles Hadley worked for the town for several months but opted not to return when his contract expired, while Roland Windham — the former administrator for Charleston County — exited the town last fall.

Town council had projected hiring a full-time administrator by January, 2008.
 

 

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