A South Carolina high school senior arrested in an alleged bomb plot had the ingredients to assemble a bomb in minutes, police said Monday.
Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was arrested Saturday after his parents called police when 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an oxidizing agent in explosives, was delivered to their home in Chesterfield, near the North Carolina border, Chief Randall Lear of the Chesterfield Police Department said.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Sam Parker said the ammonium nitrate was purchased on eBay.
Lear said the teen hadn't built a complete bomb but had appropriate materials so that "it would be a matter of just minutes to put something together."
Most of the ingredients were common household items, the chief said.
Parker said Schallenberger, who was assigned a lawyer in an initial court appearance on Monday, is cooperating with the investigation.
"He seemed to hate the world. He hated people different from him -- the rich boys with good-looking girlfriends," The Associated Press quoted Lear as saying.
The teen planned to make several bombs to detonate at Chesterfield in what Schallenberger called a "Columbine followup" in his journal, Lear said.
The police chief said Schallenberger's journal revealed his sympathies for the two teenage gunmen who carried out the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Those shootings left 15 people dead, including the shooters.
But, Lear said, the South Carolina teen made it clear that he didn't want to "copycat" Columbine. He planned out in detail -- down to the costs of the bomb supplies -- his plans for multiple explosions at the school, Lear said.
He even recorded an audiotape meant to be heard after he attacked the school and killed himself, though he had not set a date for his plans, Lear said.
Police searched the area around Schallenberger's home for additional supplies and weapons. No guns were found in the home, Lear said.
"I don't have any doubt that he was going to carry it out," Lear said. "On the surface, he was one thing, and in his writing, he was something else."
Police interviews with family and friends painted Schallenberger as a handsome, social student with ambitions for college. "He was not what you would call a loner," Lear said.
The police chief said investigators aren't aware of any accomplices.
Scott Radkin, the principal of Chesterfield High School, said Schallenberger is among the top students in the senior class, according to an AP report.
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