Charges Dropped Against Alleged Cape Cod Plotter

Police and prosecutors on Cape Cod once thought they may have stopped a school shooting before it began. Now, just weeks later, the case against 18-year-old Ian Fotheringham of Falmouth has unraveled in a way that raises more questions than answers.

Back on September 11, Fotheringham was arrested after months of red flags. He had allegedly told people he wanted to “shoot up a school,” was spotted behind Teaticket Elementary clutching his phone as if he were filming the playground, and his phone later placed him near Mashpee High School on at least two other occasions when no one was around. Police searching his home didn’t find illegal weapons, but they did find something almost as concerning. There was a large 3D printer capable of producing gun components, journals referencing Columbine, and images from the 1999 massacre stored on his phone. He had also reportedly told staff at a mental health program he wanted to shave his head, wear a trench coat, and put on boots to “play the part” of a white supremacist shooter. This wasn’t just teenage posturing.

Fotheringham was initially held without bail, but after a dangerousness hearing on September 16, a Barnstable District Court judge ordered his release on $2,500 bail, GPS monitoring, and house arrest. That decision already left parents furious. They sat in court and listened to the laundry list of disturbing details only to watch the system decide that the threats weren’t enough to keep him locked up.

Now comes the twist. Prosecutors have dropped the case entirely. On September 25, the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office announced that a “discrepancy” had been discovered that made further prosecution “no longer available” in District Court. No one will say what the discrepancy is, other than insisting the investigation is still ongoing.

That silence leaves a lot of room for speculation. Was it a witness misidentification? A problem with evidence collection? Or something bureaucratic that made the charge of “threatening to use a deadly weapon in a public building” fall apart? Whatever it is, officials aren’t talking, and that doesn’t inspire confidence in a community already shaken.

Fotheringham’s attorney, meanwhile, has doubled down. She claims her client wasn’t even at Teaticket Elementary the day he was supposedly seen lurking in the woods. Instead, she says, he was home taking care of his sick mother. And in a statement after the charges were dropped, she went further, suggesting that police may have the wrong person entirely and that the ‘real’ suspect is still out there. This lawyer may have just earned a posthumous high-five from O.J. Simpson, but I digress.

On one hand, that sounds far-fetched. What are the odds that there’s another would-be school shooter prowling around Cape Cod schools at the same time? On the other hand, given the steady stream of Columbiners showing up in the headlines lately, the odds might not be as slim as we’d like to believe. But let’s be real. Fotheringham is a distinct-looking young man. The idea that his long-lost twin just happens to be running around scouting schools doesn’t hold much water.

It’s also worth noting that dropped charges don’t mean the case is over. Double jeopardy only applies to convictions. If prosecutors find a way to patch up whatever this “discrepancy” is, new charges could be filed. Until then, though, parents in Falmouth and Mashpee are left staring at extra police cars parked outside their schools, wondering how a kid who once talked about becoming a white supremacist shooter is back home with nothing more than a lawyer’s press release standing between him and accountability.

(Sources)