Teenager’s plot for bombing, mass shooting at Washington mall foiled, FBI says

A teenager in Oregon planned to set off an explosive at a shopping mall in Washington state and shoot people as they fled the movie theater there, said law enforcement officials, one of whom said the plot “was as serious as it gets.”

The teenager, who is from Columbia County, Oregon, and whose name and precise age were not released, was arrested May 22 by deputies from the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, according to the FBI.

Officials in the FBI’s Portland, Oregon, office said the attack was planned for the Three Rivers Crossing mall in Kelso, Washington, which is about 50 miles north of Portland. Representatives of the mall could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday.

The detailed and imminent attack plans were reported to the FBI on May 19, officials said at a news conference in Portland on Thursday. The agency worked with local police to identify the suspect the next day.

Doug Olson, the special agent in charge at the Portland office of the FBI, did not disclose who tipped off authorities, saying only that “if you see something, say something.”

The teenager was placed under court-authorized surveillance, and a federal search warrant was executed at his home May 22.

Authorities seized three handguns, boxes of ammunition, four knives and five digital devices, Olson said.

“This plot was as serious as it gets,” Olson said. “We, along with our partners, moved swiftly to interrupt this violent plan and to protect our community.”

The teenager faces state charges, which were not specified. It was unclear Saturday whether he had a lawyer.

The FBI said the teenager demonstrated the intent and means to carry out the attack. His plans included a map of the mall, a route he would follow and the clothing he planned to wear.

He posted the attack plans in an online chat May 17, Olson said.

The focal point of the plot was to use an explosive – what authorities said was known as a chlorine bomb – to set off a panic. During the chaos, he then planned to shoot mall patrons as they fled the movie theater and surroundings.

He then planned to kill himself at another part of the mall, according to officials.

“An alarming amount of indicators of a cogent path to violence were met – at no point in this plan did it seem like the suspect wouldn’t follow through with their plans,” the FBI said in a statement.

The teenager had been planning the attack since early this year, the agency said.

He had pledged allegiance to several unspecified “nihilistic violent extremist” groups and ideologies in online chats, the FBI said.

Would-be attackers like the teenager sometimes discuss their threats with others, then make more detailed plans and start to collect materials and weapons to carry it out, Olson said, describing it as “a pathway to violence.”

In the aftermath of an actual attack, he said, “there’s somebody along the way that picked up some of those breadcrumbs.”

“If they had something and shared it,” he added, “we might have been able to get to them before they turned it into a violent attack.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.