FBI thwarts mass shooting planned for Washington state mall, authorities say

The FBI

thwarted a potential mass shooting by a teenager who planned to set off an explosive at a shopping mall in Washington state and shoot people as they fled the movie theater there, law enforcement leaders said Thursday.

A juvenile boy from Columbia County was arrested May 22 on state charges, according to the FBI. Authorities didn’t release his name.

The shooting was planned for the Three Rivers Crossing in Kelso, Washington, authorities said. The mall is about 50 miles north of Portland off Interstate 5, and has a mix of national retailers including JCPenney, Target and Safeway, local businesses and Regal Cinemas, according to its website.

The teen had a map of the mall, a route to follow and a plan to use a chlorine bomb as a distraction to cause panic and then shoot people as they left the movie theater before killing himself at the mall, the FBI said in a statement.

“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.

Douglas A. Olson, special agent in charge of Portland’s FBI office, said the FBI received a tip on May 19 that someone had posted threats to an online group chat of “detailed and imminent attack plans” and federal agents by the next day had identified a suspect and then obtained a warrant to search his Columbia County residence.

The suspect pledged allegiance to several online “nihilistic violent extremist” groups and ideologies and had been planning the mass casualty attack since early this year, Olson said.

Douglas A. Olson, special agent in charge of Portland’s FBI office, (at podium) announced on Thursday, June 5, 2025, that the FBI had thwarted a potential mass shooting last month at the Three Rivers Crossing mall in Kelso. Columbia County District Attorney Joshua Pond is on the left and Columbia County Sheriff Brian E. Pixley is on the right.

Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive

“This plot is as serious as it gets,” he said.

FBI’S SWAT, along with Columbia County sheriff’s deputies, served the search warrant on May 22 and arrested the teen.

Investigators found “annotated schematics,” the weapons the boy planned to use and the clothing he planned to wear – an “alarming number of indicators” that suggested he intended to follow through on his threatened attack, Olson said.

Among the items seized were three handguns, boxes of ammunition, four knives and five digital devices, Olson said.

The boy was taken into custody by Columbia County juvenile authorities and was scheduled to appear in juvenile court Thursday afternoon, Columbia County District Attorney Joshua Pond said. He did not say whether the case would be transferred to adult court or whether the teen attended a Columbia County school.

Pond said only that the boy was of “school age” and there had been “some changes to his schooling” in the last few months.

Olson said the case is a prime example of the importance of the phrase, “If you see something, say something.”

He said it’s not unusual for someone to discuss their threat and talk about it with others, then make more detailed plans and start to acquire materials and weapons to carry it out.

“I just think it shows that these threats are real,” he said. “I think this is a great example of a team working together to eliminate what I believe was something that was imminent, that was going to happen.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X

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