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Teen White Supremacist Charged in Plot to Attack School

An Alabama teenager was arrested last week after his high school teacher uncovered the young man’s alleged terror plot. Derek Shrout, 17, has been charged with a felony count of attempted assault, and will be tried as an adult in Russell County. A teacher at Russell County High School identified what appeared to be plans for an attack on the school in Shrout’s notebook, which featured code words like “Fat boy” and “Little Man,” referring to the atomic bombs the U.S. deployed in Japan during World War II. Police discovered materials that could be used in homemade explosives during a search of the boy’s home.

“The journal contained several plans that looked like potential terrorist attacks, and attacks of violence and danger on the school.  And in particular, there were six students specifically named, and one teacher,” Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said during a press conference. “These bombs are potential; they’re not complete… It could have been a day later, potentially.”

The Associated Press reports that Shrout began recording his plans in the journal three days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December. Though he told authorities that the journal was fantasy rather than a plan of action, police revealed that the teen was well known for racist behavior at the school. Shrout and his friends were acknowledged white supremacists, rallying in the high school under Nazi salutes. Of the six students named in the journal, five were black, according to WTVM, a local news station.

“He was confident, well-rounded, but as time went by, he was doing the whole white power thing,” David Kelly, senior class president, told WTVM. “In the hallway, at breakfast, at the lunch tables, after school where we have our bus parking lot, he’d have his big old group of friends and they’d go around doing the whole white power crazy stuff.”

Shrout was released on $75,000 bond, but has been restricted to house arrest. His preliminary hearing will take place on Feb. 12. The teacher’s detection of Shrout’s alleged plans has been praised as a heroic effort, and could have prevented an attack not unlike what occurred in Newtown, Conn., last month.

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