PAW PAW (WKZO AM/FM) – The 15-year-old Paw Paw High school teen accused of planning a potential weapons attack on the school will spend the next year in a residential treatment center.
The sophomore, whose name will not be released, cut a deal with prosecutors after a judge ruled that he should be tried as a juvenile and not an adult.
Eight charges were dropped against him, and in exchange, he entered a guilty plea to a gun felony and an explosives charge.
A Van Buren County Juvenile Court judge handed him his sentence on Monday.
The center offers a nine-step program that takes about a year to complete and will help the student get assistance for mental health issues.
The teen had no previous record of offenses but had been investigated and evaluated a month before when authorities found some of his writings, complaining that he was being bullied and shamed on social media, and that he had planned violence.
But they determined at the time he did not pose a real threat.
In the month that followed he allegedly assembled bomb making materials and took guns taken from his grandfather’s home and cut them down so they would fit in a backpack.
The teen first confessed to his parents and they went to police, an action that his mother said they later regretted.
After he confessed to them, rather than seek help for the boy, they filed charges and the prosecutor attempted to try him as an adult, which could have resulted in up to 28 years in prison. But the judge determined the boy needed help and not incarceration and ruled against trying him as an adult.
