Charges: Parkland-area teen idolized school shooters, had access to arsenal

A 13-year-old boy who idolized school shooters had access to at least 20 firearms and repeatedly posted online about wanting to carry out a mass killing, according to new charging papers.

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrested the teen at his Parkland-area home around 1 a.m. Saturday. Investigators received a tip from a consultant with the National Sheriffs’ Association about the teen’s social media posts where he brandished guns and detailed his desire to kill others, according to police reports.

“The incident checked all the boxes of a mass shooter, but we were able to prevent it from happening,” sheriff’s spokesperson Carly Cappetto said Monday. Any intended target remains unknown, but Cappetto said deputies prevented a tragedy.

Prosecutors charged the teen with three counts of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, one count of attempted threat to bomb or injure property, and one count of unlawful possession of fireworks.

The teen appeared in juvenile court Monday. Pierce County Judge Joseph A. Evans ordered him held in secure detention.

“The combination of the posts showed a user (with) multiple photographs of himself holding various firearms and dressed in the attire of past school shooters,” police wrote. “These posts dated back to June 2025 and displayed a fascination of recent school shootings/mass casualty attacks across the country.”

Authorities saw at one point the person behind several social media accounts mentioned Puyallup online. Police investigators traced his phone number and obtained a search warrant, using a SWAT team to execute it.

Investigators found 23 firearms, including high-powered rifles, while searching the teen’s home, the sheriff’s office reported. Several guns were mounted on walls. Some were kept in a gun safe, and it was unclear whether the teen had access to it. Deputies seized the weapons from the home.

“Anyone in that household had access to firearms at any time,” Cappetto said.

Police found an AR-style magazine with Columbine shooting references written on it and ammunition in the teen’s “go-bag” hidden under a turtle enclosure in his room. A crude drawing of a “known mass shooter” hung under his bed, police wrote. Illegal fireworks also were found in his room and garage.

The teen posted photos of himself holding guns on X, Telegram and Tumblr. He had the same handle across all platforms.

“When I turn 21 iam going to kill people,” police say the teen wrote in one Telegram post.

“It’s over! my time is almost hear! … Muahahaha I hope I kill you all!” another alleged Telegram post reads.

The posts referenced the 2017 Charleston church shooting and the 2022 Central Visual and Performing Arts High School shooting. He also posted a craft he made with a photo of the 2022 Uvalde shooter on Tumblr, police said.

The teen posted several photos of himself dressed up like the Columbine shooters, police wrote. He wrote on X that he dreamed of being a successful shooter.

While he referenced school shootings online, police reports do not identify plans to attack a specific school. He had been home-schooled since 2021, police wrote. A spokesperson for the Franklin Pierce School District was not available for questions Monday.

Despite no specific targets being identified, Adam Faber, a spokesperson for the Pierce County prosecutor’s office, said the teen still broke the law.

Under state law, “communicating such a threat for the purpose of causing alarm, even if the person knows the threat to be false, is a chargeable crime in itself, Fabersaid in an email.

It’s unknown whether the parents will be charged with a crime, Faber said. Cappetto called it the “big lottery question,” but at this stage in the investigation, the most they could face is improper storage of firearms.

The teen is set appear in court again Sept. 17.