In Pierce County, Washington, we’re now learning that the 13-year-old arrested earlier this month for allegedly plotting a mass shooting could be out of juvenile detention before the end of September.

This is the same boy deputies say was caught with 23 firearms, many of them 3D-printed and untraceable, along with writings and clothing celebrating past mass shooters. Investigators compared the scene in his bedroom to a shrine for Columbine and Uvalde. Gun parts labeled “school shooter.” Quotes from killers. Pictures of murderers treated like heroes. He hasn’t been in school since 2021, when he was nine years old, but he’s had plenty of time to build his own arsenal.

Deputies didn’t downplay the threat. They flat-out said, “We stopped something very bad from happening.” And they’re right. A 13-year-old with a stockpile of homemade guns is not a child playing soldier. It’s a tragedy in the making, interrupted just before it spilled into headlines.

And now, he has a hearing set for September 22. At that hearing, a judge will decide whether he stays locked up or goes back home.

Here’s where things get dangerous. If a judge lets this kid walk back into the same house where he printed guns like Lego bricks, what exactly do we think will change? His parents already brushed off the evidence as harmless posturing. His mother called it “trying to be cool.” His father said the charges were overblown. These are not the people you trust to supervise a teenager who built 23 firearms and idolized mass shooters.

Now, I find it hard to believe that any judge in their right mind would just wave this boy out of detention and back into that same environment. At minimum, you’d expect major restrictions such as electronic monitoring, mandatory schooling, mental health evaluations, and constant oversight. To just cut him loose would be insanity. But in today’s world, you just never know. Courts have a funny way of minimizing red flags until it’s too late.

If the justice system makes the wrong call here, Pierce County could find itself staring down the same flashing red siren all over again. Only next time, deputies may not get there in time.

(Source)

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