Undercover FBI agent chatted online with Oregon 14-year-old on extremist ‘764’ network, lawyer says

A Columbia County judge on Friday ordered

a 14-year-old

Oregon boy to remain in custody as a safety threat to himself and others as he faces attempted murder accusations in an

alleged mass shooting plot

.

Beau Carr appeared by video from a juvenile detention center, biting his nails multiple times during the half-hour hearing while his parents watched from the courtroom in St. Helens.

The teen’s lawyer, Chris Heywood, argued for his release, saying juvenile authorities have


no treatment plan yet to address his mental health needs or to allow for his parents to visit more than twice a week.

Heywood also said an undercover FBI agent was chatting with the teen on the extremist online network “764” and that the conversations led to the prosecution.

“That’s a juvenile person who needs help,” Heywood said. “He’s a child presumed to be innocent.”

But Deputy District Attorney Cody Coughlin and county juvenile counselor Liz Ring argued for Carr’s continued detention, saying the teen has a history of suicidal and homicidal ideations that his mother had known about.

The parents also did not secure guns in the home, Ring said.

In fact, Ring said, guns had been “taken out at night.” She did not say who took the guns out of secured locations or how they were used.

An evaluation found that “Beau needs to have eyes on him at all times,” Ring said.

Heywood countered that the teen has been bullied, teased and harassed since he moved with his retired parents from Roseburg to the tiny town of Clatskanie last fall.

In February, his parents pulled him out of school after he posted a photo of himself holding a gun on a private Snapchat group with other students. Another parent reported him and local police investigated the case, but police failed to refer the incident to the county juvenile department or district attorney’s office,


according to Heywood.

Heywood denounced the lack of any “intervention” by juvenile authorities


at the time.

Instead, the teen’s parents started to homeschool him and had him see a therapist who put him on an antidepressant, Heyward said.

But Carr became increasingly isolated and was drawn to the violent network 764, largely by its music, his lawyer said.

The FBI said the teen shared his plans on the network to ignite a chlorine bomb to cause panic at Three Rivers Valley mall in Kelso, Washington, and then shoot moviegoers fleeing from the mall’s Regal Cinemas.

Douglas Olson, special agent in charge of the FBI in Portland, said the FBI received a tip and searched the family home on May 22, finding “precise” details of his alleged plot as well as four handguns. Columbia County sheriff’s deputies arrested him that day.

Heywood said the teen’s plan was “fantastical” and that investigators found no chlorine explosives in the home.

A “replica gun”


that the FBI said the teen showed online was an airsoft gun that Carr claimed he would use as a homemade flame thrower, Heywood said.

“There’s no evidence this got any further than online communication,” Heywood said. “He wanted a place to fit in.”

The FBI earlier this year issued a

public alert

about 764, warning about the “sharp increase” in activity by what it described as a predatory

“nihilistic violent extremist”

group that targets and exploits children and other vulnerable people. Federal officials said the group members use threats, blackmail and manipulation to pressure young people into producing, sharing or live-streaming acts of self-harm, cruelty, sexually explicit acts and suicide.

The FBI last month told ABC News that the agency has opened more than 250 investigations into the online network and said the network also has ties to neo-Nazis and Satanism.

Of four guns found in Carr’s home, two were unsecured, Heywood acknowledged. But one was inoperable, he said, and the other was found in a dresser of the parents’ bedroom after they removed it from their safe the night before the police raid because they had spotted suspicious vehicles driving by their secluded rural home on a dead-end street.

Heywood unsuccessfully urged


Circuit Judge Nickolas Brajcich to release Carr to his parents with GPS monitoring and place him under 24-hour home detention.

The guns in the house have been seized by the FBI, and he said the parents can lock up their kitchen knives and their garage to keep him far from any tools.

Ring, the juvenile counselor, said the department is working to arrange a psychological evaluation but it may take some time. Keeping the teen in juvenile detention will keep him safe until the case resolves and an appropriate treatment plan can be put together, she said.

Carr has been in custody since his arrest. He’s being held at the Cowlitz County juvenile detention center in Longview, Washington, on allegations of attempted second-degree murder, attempted assault, two counts of unlawful possession of firearms, disorderly conduct, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and tampering with physical evidence.

Heywood entered not guilty pleas on Carr’s behalf.

Before the hearing ended, the judge spoke directly to the 14-year-old, a red-headed boy dressed in a teal T-shirt who sat alone in a concrete-walled room with a juvenile counselor watching from the doorway.

Brajcich assured him that the criminal justice system considers him innocent unless proven guilty.

But the judge said he found legitimate concerns about the teen’s safety and the public’s safety and ordered him to remain in juvenile detention until the next hearing, set for June 20.

“We’re going to hold you until that hearing,” the judge said.

“You understand everything, Beau?” Brajcich asked.

The 14-year-old nodded.

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


@maxoregonian


, on Bluesky


@maxbernstein.bsky.social


or on


LinkedIn


.

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