People keep calling this a “foiled plot,” which makes it sound abstract and distant, like something out of a movie script that never made it to production.

What actually happened in Kennewick, Washington, was much simpler and much closer to disaster.

Fourteen-year-old Mason Bently-Ray Ashby, a ninth grader at Kamiakin High School, was arrested on September 20th, 2025, after a TikTok post showing a color-coded map of the school was reported to the FBI by a child in Florida. Within about 24 hours, Kennewick police had traced the account to Ashby’s grandparents’ home and taken him into custody.

Investigators did not find a kid making idle jokes online. They found a manifesto, multiple maps labeling classrooms and the library as targets, areas marked as “potential targets,” and notes about shooting through windows. They found drawings and writings about mass shootings. Not only that, but they found videos of Ashby handling firearms and another video of him walking the Kamiakin campus the day before his arrest, commenting on glass doors and windows and saying, “Shoot through the windows, shoot through the doors.” In that same walkthrough, he referenced Parkland and Sandy Hook.

Police also learned Ashby had cracked the code to his grandfather’s gun safe by noticing smudges on the keypad. That gave him access to at least 24 firearms. On the day of his arrest, Ashby took a Glock .22 pistol and a magazine in his backpack to a friend’s house. When he learned police were looking for him, he handed the gun off. Another teenager later scattered the weapon, magazine, and ammunition near Columbia Center mall. Officers recovered it with the help of a K-9 unit.

Prosecutors described this as far more than planning. They pointed to the TikTok map, the manifesto, the dress rehearsal walkthrough, and the fact that Ashby physically carried a gun while his plans were unfolding.

Even after being confined in juvenile detention, Ashby did not move on. According to court testimony, he continued creating documents about school shootings. Officers intercepted another map he made while in custody. He compiled lists of mass shootings, ranked shooters, and marked a “suicide spot.” Prosecutors said these documents appeared to have been created from memory.

Defense attorney Branden Landon acknowledged Ashby’s fascination with school shootings but argued that fascination does not equal action. He told the court that intent alone is not enough for attempted murder and suggested Ashby was engaging in fantasy, social media posturing, and dark curiosity rather than preparing to carry out violence. The defense also argued that Ashby had brought the gun to his friend’s house before and always returned it, claiming this showed he was not escalating toward an attack.

Anyone who has followed school shooting cases for years has heard this argument before. Nearly every plotter or shooter is initially described as someone who was “just fantasizing” until the evidence says otherwise.

In this case, Judge Jacqueline Shea-Brown rejected that framing.

On January 31st, she found Ashby guilty in juvenile court of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, threats to bomb or injure property, and eleven counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. She cited the manifesto, the maps, the TikTok video, the walkthrough, Ashby’s continued fixation while detained, and his access to weapons. The manifesto itself was central to the ruling. Ashby wrote that his social media accounts would be exposed after the “massacre,” speculated about recording the attack, and described figuring out the gun safe combination.

Prosecutors emphasized that Ashby had a plan, a gun, and had taken concrete steps toward carrying it out. The judge agreed that this went beyond imagination.

Ashby is now 15. His sentencing has not yet been scheduled. Because Washington law does not allow a 14-year-old to be charged as an adult for attempted murder, he remains in the juvenile system. The maximum sentence available would keep him confined until age 21. Adult prosecution would only have been possible if someone had actually been killed.

That legal reality is hard to swallow when you consider how close this came.

Prosecutor Eric Eisinger said afterward that this was not a victimless crime. The Kamiakin community was shaken, students were traumatized, and families were forced to confront how narrowly they avoided catastrophe. He credited two brothers across the country who reported the TikTok post and law enforcement’s rapid response for preventing a tragedy.

That is the uncomfortable takeaway here. A child in Florida noticed something was wrong and spoke up. Police acted quickly. Those two things made the difference.

Not gun safes. Not the promises of ‘responsible gun owners’™. Not wishful thinking about troubled teens and harmless fantasies.

A 14-year-old cracked a safe, wrote a manifesto, mapped targets, rehearsed his route, carried a firearm, and continued obsessing even after being locked up.

This did not end differently because the system worked perfectly. It ended differently because someone intervened in time.

(Sources)

• WA student allegedly had ‘morbid fascination’ with school shootings, made plans
• Verdict reached in Tri-Cities school shooting plot involving manifesto and maps