Police say he told a friend that he was planning to shoot up the school. He’s now been charged with making a terroristic threat.
But when they took Sun into custody and searched his room, here’s what they found, as listed in the report: “a military-style ballistic vest, ski mask, military web gear with pouches to hold ammunition clips, a high-powered crossbow and arrows, a bullet loading dock for an AR-15 and AK-47, an empty box for a gun-making kit, 20 live round, ear protectors for firing, and a strangulation device called a garrote.”
Notice one thing missing from that list? They didn’t find an actual gun. There was a box for a gun-making kit. A modest amount of ammunition was found. (Let’s be honest… twenty rounds isn’t all that much.) And he had a crossbow, but when you consider how long it takes to reload a crossbow compared to the firing rate of any decent semiautomatic firearm, it’s not quite as much of a threat. The garrote is certainly worrisome as a visual, but it’s also not an implement for mass murder unless all your victims are sleeping.
So what happens when this guy (who is now 18) goes to trial? He never actually did anything violent. And they don’t even have a firearms charge on him unless a gun turns up later. Do they just have to let him walk? Or perhaps cancel whatever type of visa exchange students use and send him back to Taiwan?
A thwarted school shooting in PA by an exchange student raises more questions