US teen nabbed, foiling possible school shooting

NEW YORK: Pennsylvania officials said a 14-year-old boy was arrested after police found weapons at his home that he may have been intended for a Columbine-style school shooting.
    
Police in Montgomery seized a semi-automatic rifle and several air-powered guns at the home of the teenager, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor said on Thursday. The teenager's identity was not disclosed.
    
"The BB guns are not illegal and can be bought anywhere ... the rifle ... the information we have (is) that his mother bought it from a gun show," the official said, adding that charges were being considered against the mother and other members of the household.
    
The arrest of the teenager comes a day after a gun-toting 14-year-old boy went on a shooting rampage at a Cleveland, Ohio, high school wounding two adults and two students before taking his own life.
    
Plymouth Whitemarsh high school, in the same Philadelphia suburb of Montgomery, said on its website the police raid in the suspected teenager's house followed tips by a student and his father.
    
The suspect was not enrolled at the school, the statement said, but was 'reportedly planning a 'Columbine' type event', referring to the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two students shot 12 students and a teacher to death before committing suicide.
    
"Police acted quickly on the tip ... and indicated that the school and its students were never in danger," the school statement said.