King County prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old former Kentwood High student with threats to bomb or injure property in connection with an emailed threat March 29 to the principal that caused the Covington school to evacuate 2,000 students and staff and be shut down for a day.
Ryan D. LaPlante, told King County Sheriff’s Office detectives he emailed the threat because he was angry that he did not graduate in 2012 after attending Kentwood for four years, according to charing papers filed May 28.
LaPlante is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in King County Superior Court at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. If convicted as charged, the sentence range for LaPlante would be three to nine months in jail, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
LaPlante is not currently in custody, according to county jail records. A summons has been issued to him to appear in court. LaPlante has no criminal history, according to charging papers.
Detectives arrested LaPlante April 6 at his father’s home in Kennewick. LaPlante had lived in Kent with his mother before moving to the Tri-Cities. Detectives served a search warrant at the Kennewick house and seized two computers. Investigators used those computers over the last several weeks to connect LaPlante to the email sent to Principal Doug Hostetter, according to charging papers.
“I’m writing you because you need to be prepared today at 11:15 p.m. for a hostage takeover in the school’s commons during lunch,” the email to the principal said. “I will not reveal my true name because I have hacked this account. Many students will be killed by my hands and my men but they will be sacrificed for a greater cause and the cause is to destroy the government starting with education.
“P.S. Be prepared for a blood bath! Oh and one more thing your going to need the Kent swat team and the bomb squad there to take out me and my men and the bomb I have planted trust me.”
After receiving the threat, school officials voluntarily sent students home for the day while police searched the school at 25800 164th Ave. S.E. Nothing was found during the search but police said the threat was still taken seriously.
LaPlante told detectives after his arrest that he didn’t have a car and had no way to carry out the threat from Kennewick. He said he deleted his Yahoo account because he did not want to get caught. He said he had this “tic” in his head and he had to send the message.
Detectives worked with Yahoo and Clearwire, an Internet service provider, to track down the IP address connected with the email sent to the principal. That led detectives to the Kennewick street address. It was determined LaPlante had a valid Yahoo account that had not been hacked.
Detectives determined through analysis of LaPlante’s laptop computer that he had searched on Google for “Kentwood confessions and Doug Hostetter” as well as “what is the maximum sentence for a bomb threat to a school in Washington state.”
During the search of the Kennewick home, police also found a knife and a M-5 rifle replica air soft gun. The knife and gun are the same items LaPlante is holding in pictures he posted on his Facebook page, according to charging papers. His Facebook page also includes a National Rife Association (NRA) Stand and Fight logo as well as a symbol for the U.S. Army Delta Force, a counter-terrorism and special missions unit.
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