Teenager admits death threats, gets probation
A 15-year-old former Ferris High School student admitted Friday that he made death threats in connection with an alleged murder attempt at the school, but he will have a chance to clear his record.
Robert S. Weathermon threatened a boy who said Weathermon’s friend Jacob D. Carr deserved harsh punishment for allegedly attempting to kill English teacher Michelle Klein-Coles.
Weathermon pleaded guilty Friday to felony harassment, as charged in Spokane County Juvenile Court, in a deal that will allow the charge to be dismissed after a 10-month probation.
Court Commissioner Steven Grovdahl ordered Weathermon to write a letter of apology, continue receiving counseling, take medicines prescribed for his attention-deficit disorder and depression, play no violent video games and stay off the Internet except for supervised schoolwork, among other conditions of his probation.
The deal calls for 40 hours of community service, which can be offset by 35 days of detention Weathermon has already served on electronic home monitoring. If he fails his probation, additional penalties may be imposed.
Weathermon acknowledged in court that he became angry while playing a video game over the Internet and having a simultaneous voice conversation with two other boys on April 14. One of the boys commented that Weathermon’s friend, Carr, should get a 20-year prison term for allegedly attempting to murder Klein-Coles on March 24.
Carr, 15, allegedly took a loaded .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol to Ferris High and waited for an hour outside a staff room where Klein-Coles was working. Police say he hesitated because there were other adults in the room, and Klein-Coles left the building while Carr got a drink of water.
Weathermon said he told the boy who commented about Carr “that I was going to take him hostage.”
Court-appointed defense attorney Megan Manlove said Weathermon “wishes he could take it back … wishes he never had said it.”
Juvenile probation officer Ron Zumwalt said Weathermon told him he attempted to “scare the victim a little bit,” but had no intention of actually hurting anyone. Zumwalt and Manlove proposed the plea bargain, and Deputy Prosecutor Frank Christoff agreed not to oppose it.
Manlove objected that the prohibition on violent video games might be hard to enforce because “it seems every video game has some element of violence.” If deciding which games are violent is a problem, then all of them should be forbidden, Spokane County victim-witness advocate Lori Miller responded.
Grovdahl said he would leave decisions about games and the Internet to Weathermon’s father, Steven Weathermon, who was in court to outline steps he is taking regarding his son’s problems.
“We’ve had to deal with quite a bit of tragedy,” Steven Weathermon said, citing several deaths in the family in recent years.
Robert Weathermon watched his mother, JoAnne Weathermon, and his great aunt, Janice Templeton, die July 25. He was in another car, two cars back, when his mother turned into the path of a motorhome while attempting to enter the Silverwood theme park near Athol, Idaho.