A California teen “obsessed with school shootings” had “every intention” of shooting up his own high school — planning it for the 25th anniversary of the Columbine massacre, according to authorities.
Sebastian Villasenor, 18, was busted Saturday at home in Eastvale, about 45 miles east of Los Angeles — where he had access to seven rifles, two revolvers, a shotgun and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, according to police.
He had made threats that were “so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific” at least one of his intended targets faced “an immediate prospect of execution,” according to a charging document.
“What we discovered through the course of our investigation revealed that Villasenor had every intention of carrying out a school shooting at the Ontario Christian High School,” Ontario Police Chief Michael Lorenz said Wednesday.
“We learned Villasenor was obsessed with school shootings and police response times,” Lorenz added.
“He researched tactical supplies and was in the process of choosing a specific date to carry out the school shooting,” he said.
That appeared to have been around April 20, the 25th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado that left 15 people dead, including the two teenage gunmen, the chief said.
Villasenor, who had not been in trouble with the law before, was arrested after a classmate reported he “had been showing signs of being fixated on school shootings and had access to weapons,” the chief said.
He was charged Wednesday with five counts of attempted murder and one count of attempting to make criminal threats, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Charging documents listed the threats as being against at least five unidentified people, all but one of them girls.
Although he didn’t have a written “hit list” or a “manifesto,” police believe that Villasenor was focusing on five specific Ontario students as intended victims and “contemplated” a sixth one, based on interviews about his social interactions with the students, the chief said.
The charging documents listed five Jane Does and one John Doe, suggesting the threats were mostly made against girls.
Lorenz said investigators determined that Villasenor was not “bullied or harassed” but had a hard time “forming relationships with other students and in his social interactions.”
The police chief hailed the unidentified student who raised the alarm about Villasenor as a “hero.”
“That student saved lives, spared families from losing their children and a community from being devastated from a senseless act of violence,” Lorenz said.
Ontario Christian High School Principal Ben Dykhouse said he was grateful to God, the police and to the student “who was brave enough to say something when they saw something that was off.”
It was not immediately clear if the teen had an attorney representing him.
With Post wires