Jared Cano arrested over Tampa school bomb plot.

[googlead tip=”patrat_mare”]Wednesday, Florida police announced that arrested Jared Cano,17, who had material to make pipe bombs at his home and had planned to attack and cause mass casualties at the Tampa high school that had expelled him.

A “potentially catastrophic” bomb plot hatched by an expelled high-school student has been thwarted in the US city of Tampa, Florida, according to the police.

“We were probably able to thwart a potentially catastrophic event the likes of which the city of Tampa has not seen and hopefully never will,”  Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor told a news conference.

Police named the suspect, as Jared Cano, 17, who is accused of planning to plant a device at Freedom High School in Hillsborough County, north Tampa and detonate it as students returned on Tuesday.

Fuel, shrapnel and plastic tubing, along with timing and fusing devices were found at his home, police said.

The teenager had previously been arrested on several juvenile charges.

[googlead tip=”vertical_mediu” aliniat=”stanga”] “Mr. Cano, who had been expelled from the school, was hoping to kill or injure more people than the 1999 shooting by two students at Columbine High School in Colorado,” police chief Jane Castor said.

In April 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Colorado killed 12 students and one teacher in one of the deadliest school massacres in US history.

“Mr. Cano was arrested on Tuesday night after an unnamed individual came forth with information about the plot,” said Jane Castor.

“That’s what we need in this community, to have the citizens involved in keeping this community safe,” she added.

“And that was a prime example of allowing us to avoid a very serious event yesterday.”

In addition to the alleged bomb-making material found in his home, investigators also found drawings of rooms inside the school and statements about his intent to kill people, police said.

“The minute-by-minute plot targeted specific school staff and any students who were nearby,” police said.

St Petersburg Times reported that when Jared Cano appeared in court on Wednesday he was asked by the judge if he had anything to say.

Cano began: “The plan wasn’t…”, but a defence lawyer interrupted and advised him to say no more, reports the newspaper.

Jared Cano faces charges of threatening to throw, project, place or discharge a destructive device, possession of bomb-making materials and marijuana charges.

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Chris Farkas, Freedom High School principal told media that Jared Cano had been expelled in April 2010 because of a non-school-related incident.

Farkas said of his former student’s arrest: “Once I found out and saw the information and saw what was taken from the apartment complex, that was when the reality and the fear set in that this was a real situation.”

Jared Cano has been arrested in the past for burglary, drug possession and weapons offences, according to police.