<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> DENVER, Dec. 17 — Warning that they will not tolerate terror threats against Columbine High School, federal officials charged an 18-year-old Florida man with sending a computer message that prompted the school to be closed for two days. The man's mother said her son tried to play a joke that ended up as "a stupid mistake."
FBI AGENTS arrested Michael Ian Campbell of Cape Coral, Fla., and charged him with using an interstate communications facility to make a threat of injury to another person. The charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
“Today’s arrest should send a strong message that threats, especially against our schools, will not be tolerated,” said Thomas Strickland, U.S. Attorney for the Denver district. “These types of threats are taken very seriously.”
Campbell is accused of sending an Internet instant message to a 16-year-old Columbine sophomore Wednesday night warning her not go to school the next day. "I need to finish what begun and if you do I don't want your blood on my hands," it read in part.
Classes at Columbine were canceled Thursday and Friday, forcing the postponement of some final exams until after the holidays. It was the first time the school was shut since classes resumed in August, four months after two seniors killed 12 fellow students, a teacher and themselves in an armed attack on April 20.
Officials would not comment on the seriousness of the threat.
The sender of the instant message used the screen name "Soup 81," and authorities obtained a court order in Denver Thursday that forced Internet service provider America Online to disclose details about an account holder using that name.
HOUSE SEARCHED
FBI agents executed a search warrant at Campbell's house early Friday morning, questioned him and seized a computer. Officials said Campbell admitted that he used the screen name "Soup 81" and that he sent the message over AOL's instant message system to Erin J. Walton.
Campbell was attending Edison Community College in Fort Myers, and a neighbor said he worked at a Best Buy electronics store.
Officials said they did not believe there was any "long-term link" between Campbell and Walton, and they suggested he had learned she was a Columbine student through information about her that was available on AOL.
Campbell's mother, Pamela Campbell, told WBBH-TV in Fort Myers, Fla., that her son had become acquainted with Walton via AOL and sent her the message as a joke - but failed to follow up on the original message.
It was "a stupid mistake," the mother was quoted as saying.
The mother, who wept openly during Friday's court appearance, told WBBH that her husband had died recently of lung cancer.
"She's just lost her husband, and now she feels like, at least temporarily, she lost her son," said WBBH reporter Kris Loyd, who interviewed the mother.
Campbell was being held in solitary confinement, under suicide watch, Loyd reported.
PROSECUTED IN COLORADO
Strickland said Campbell would be prosecuted in Colorado.
"It's this community that's been victimized, and it's this community that was the recipient of the threat, and it's in this community that this will be seen to a conclusion," he said.
He said it could be a few days to a few weeks before Campbell is brought to Colorado.
One of Campbell's neighbors, Wilma Brauchler, 64, said the family had moved to Cape Coral from Michigan about six years ago.
"I know he was on the computer a lot," Brauchler said. "These days everyone is on the computer in this neighborhood." [/quote]
[This message has been edited by Caeca Invidia Es (edited December 18, 1999).]
Soup81 is the name of the poster who was traced by the way.