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 from Columbia County was taken into custody May 22 on state charges, according to the FBI. Authorities didn’t release the suspect’s 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 12-screen 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 committing suicide 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 by the next day, federal agents had identified the person and obtained a warrant to search his residence on May 22.

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.

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

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

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

They seized three handguns, boxes of ammunition, four knives and the clothing that the suspect planned to wear to carry out the alleged plot, Olson said.

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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