Spain Nabs Plotter of Columbine-Style Attack

Spain’s National Police arrested a man who sought to copy the Columbine shooting and was preparing to set off a bomb at the University of the Balearic Islands. (Photo Courtesy National Police, Spain)

Spanish authorities said they foiled a Columbine-like bomb plot at a university and arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with it.

Police said the man might have been planning an attack similar to the Columbine High School shooting in the U.S. state of Colorado that left 12 students and a teacher dead in 1999.

In a statement, the Spanish Interior Ministry said police obtained around 300 pounds of bomb-manufacturing materials when they arrested the man on the island city of Palma de Mallorca, where he was planning to carry out the attack at a local university. He was only identified as a Spanish national with the initials JMMS.

“In his diary, he expresses a hatred for society and wanted to commit great violence by using shrapnel-filled pipe bombs on campus,” the statement reads, because he had a “hatred for the college students” at the University of the Balearic Islands.

It added that he expressed sympathy toward Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine shooting.

The alleged bomb plotter also expressed a “love of weapons, clothing, and was socially isolated” in a manner similar as Harris and Klebold, the statement adds.

Police began investigating the suspect around five months ago when he posted comments on the Internet that alluded to the massacre and later, attempted to obtain firearms but was not successful, the ministry said. He then opted to manufacture bombs by buying precursors purchased on the Internet to carry out his plans, it added.

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