Dunlap girls released after Internet
The students at Sequatchie County High School appeared at a closed hearing on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal homicide after being arrested Wednesday. They have not been identified because they are minors.
Assistant District Attorney Steve Strain said the girls were ordered to be removed from the school and take classes off campus, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
They were also ordered not to have any access to weapons and to undergo mental evaluations. A future hearing has not been set, pending completion of the evaluations.
“I think the best thing to do is wait until we know all the facts,” said Keith Grant, attorney for one of the girls. “There are two camps on this thing: One is that it’s very serious; the other is that it’s just goofy girls.”
The girls were charged Wednesday after police and school officials found threatening references to the list posted by the girls on MySpace, a social networking Web site.
Police said the written list was first discovered in a school trash can and carried about 300 names. Most were students and faculty members at the school but it also included President Bush, Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and the Energizer bunny.
“In general terms, it was like, ‘Let’s kill these people,'” said Chief Clint Huth, chief of police in Dunlap.
The U.S. Secret Service does not comment on investigations of threats to the president, but high school Principal Tommy Layne said its agents visited the school and determined there was no threat to Bush.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Dunlap police investigated a bomb threat written on a bathroom at Sequatchie County Middle School, next door to the high school. Huth said the bomb threat message was, “I’m going to blow up the school on 01/26/07” and another message was a derogatory remark about the six high school girls.
Huth said bomb-detecting dogs were used to search the middle school campus late Thursday and no explosive device or weapon was found.
“Everything went fine today,” he said Friday.