Two high school students at Leonardtown High School in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, have been arrested for threatening to bring weapons to school, authorities say.
Two days after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, someone overheard two teen boys, ages 15 and 16, talking on a school bus about how they would have done it differently and bragging about how they were too smart to get caught, police said.
The St. Mary's County Sheriff’s Office and the high school's School Resource Officer immediately began an investigation after authorities received a tip about the threat, the sheriff's office said.
School officials contacted the two students and were conducting a home visit when authorities found a cache of weapons in one teen's home, St. Mary’s County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. James Scott Smith said.
Police said they found semi-automatic rifles, handguns, other weapons and ammunition at the Leonardtown home of 39-year-old David Fairfax, the father of one of the two students.
"Thirty-nine unsecured firearms were seized. These include a handgun in the 14-year-old son's room and a handgun in the room of the 15-year-old juvenile suspect student's bedroom," said St. Mary's County Sheriff Timothy Cameron.
Officers found 25 more weapons in a subsequent search.
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Fairfax has been charged with two counts of reckless endangerment, access to a firearm by a minor and illegal transfer of a firearm, the sheriff's office said.
Police said Fairfax had a federal license to own the weapons, but the unsecured weapons were not in compliance with the law.
School officials were not only concerned by the students' access to firearms, but were also concerned also by a troubling post on social media.
One of the teens had posed with the firearms in a photo, according to a School Resource Officer.
The teens have been charged with threat of mass violence.
Both students and their respective families have been ordered to stay away from all county school properties while the investigation continues.
This comes after police said an 18-year-old Montgomery County, Maryland, student accused of taking a loaded gun to his high school Thursday had more weapons at home.
