SANTA CRUZ >> A day after Santa Cruz High School was shut down because of an email threat of a mass shooting, a student who says he’s 16 and sent the email, went to school Thursday as if nothing had happened.
No one suspected him, he told the Sentinel.
The student, who contacted the Sentinel by four anonymous Twitter accounts and then with an exchange of masked emails Thursday, said he was an honor student with an interest in technology and no criminal record. He said he did it “simply for the thrill” and had “never seen a gun.”
He wrote that he, “didn’t mean for it to blow up like this. I just wanted to have some excitement and get out of school. Now the fbi is involved and its too serious.”
Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said he could not confirm or deny that the person communicating with the Sentinel was a suspect. However, authorities said the information the teen provided to the Sentinel about the type of gun and time and place of the threatened shooting matched details of the original email received by Santa Cruz High School Principal Karen Edmonds on Tuesday night. Police have not made those details public.
The student told the Sentinel he threatened to use a high-powered rifle in the cafeteria, but also said he wasn’t “homicidal just a thrill seeker.”
The student, who used aliases of Robert and Pierre on email and Twitter, said he was weighing whether to turn himself in to authorities. Late Thursday night, he said he was communicating with police.
He first said he was a sophomore, then said he lied about that. He said was wracked with guilt and had “crippling” anxiety.
“The police are clueless, the packet from my computer was sent through a relay of other computers to the intended email address. My IP address was randomized not encrypted,” he wrote.
When asked where he was, he said his room. He typed Thursday night: “If you post for your newspaper that, ‘I’m sorry i frightened the community and will take any punishment placed upon me, i meant no harm; I made a foolish mistake and acted with poor judgement in order to get out of school, and for a sick thrill.’ ill turn my self in tomorrow morning.”
School officials canceled class Wednesday and held a public meeting that night, attended by hundreds. Clark declined to describe the threatening email. However, he said new tips in the investigation had rendered the school safe to open Thursday.
The person who contacted the Sentinel said Wednesday afternoon he “sent an email to the principal, and the police and the mayor apologizing.”
Clark confirmed that principal Edmonds had received a second email from the same email address as the person who contacted the Sentinel.
“Who knows if this is the real person or if this person is joining in? These kind of incidents rally the hacktivist crowd,” Clark said Thursday night.
Police were writing search warrants for a home Thursday night and had a suspect in mind.
Clark said that beyond their computer probe, investigators would be “looking at things like who might be disgruntled, who might be acting out, who might be a victim of bullying.”
In the case of “Pierre” or “Robert” — the person who contacted the Sentinel — his motive appeared more benign.
“I bet a lot of classmates were happy,” he wrote to the Sentinel in a direct message on Twitter Wednesday.
When asked if his parents suspected him, he didn’t respond.
Clark said Thursday night that if a suspect is considering surrendering, his window for doing so would close soon. Clark said police want to afford him that opportunity.
“There’s a whole host of ways that this could be handled,” said Clark.
“If this is just a kid who played a prank, I would hate to see us wake up his family with a SWAT team.”
The person who contacted the Sentinel expressed some remorse.
“I’m sorry for scaring everybody,” he wrote in an email. “I need to grow up.”
In a span of four hours Thursday, the student had exchanged more than 100 messages with the Sentinel.
Santa Cruz police ask anyone with information to call investigations at 831-420-5820, the anonymous tip line at 831-420-5995 or leave a tip at www.santacruzpolice.com or by the mobile application at m.santacruzpolice.com.
