Armed Boy, 12, Arrested in Va. School Plot

After cornering the seventh-grader, the teams then went room to room and did not let any students leave until police were certain there were no other weapons. Prince William police trained for months in 2000 for just such an event. Also, every year, each county school goes through a lockdown drill.

Principal William Bixby said all teachers and staff members locked their doors, turned off their lights and got everyone on the floor. Some students were caught between classes. Sarah Ruppert said she was walking to the library with a classmate on an errand for her teacher. She knocked on the locked door and was grabbed by the school's librarian, who told them to run to a back room.

"They were saying, 'Run to the back, run to the back,' " Sarah said. "That's when I saw [the student] outside the library, wearing Army fatigues and a red bandanna." He was also carrying "a big huge rifle," she said.

Most students were escorted from the school before they could gather their belongings to take home for the summer. School officials said students would be allowed in today and Monday and also would be provided counseling. The suspect is a member of a Boy Scout troop, a neighbor said, as is his older brother, who is an Eagle Scout. His father, who works for Mitre Corp., is a scout leader.

The student, a shy, slightly overweight boy who got good grades and liked to play video games, was "the last person you would ever imagine doing something like this," said Rebecca Bare, a neighbor. She is on the board of a homeowners association with the suspect's father.

"He's the one kid you would never have a problem with; the nicest kid in the neighborhood. He would say, 'No, sir' and 'Yes, ma'am,' " she said.

But the student had been hatching a plan, said a woman whose son is close friends with him.

"He said he wanted to take over the school, and he was trying to get other kids to help him," said the mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity because her son was one of several boys he approached. "He'd been talking about it all year."

She said the student told the other boys he was preparing a list of demands that "included a helicopter. He was so imaginative that no one took him seriously, because it sounded like a movie," the mother said. "They thought it was some kid spouting off." The woman's son added, "Most people just kind of ignored it."

Several police cars and a crime scene unit van were parked outside the family's two-level, cream-colored townhouse in Haymarket yesterday afternoon. Detectives were inside and at one point were seen carting out computers and other materials, including bags of guns, neighbors said. No one answered the door at the townhouse.

The boy has been charged with possession of a firearm on school property, possession of a firearm by a minor, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, conspiracy to commit abduction for money and conspiracy to commit murder. He is being held without bond at the Juvenile Detention Home. His mother was being held on $5,000 bond.

Some students said the boy was picked on because of his glasses and clothes and for other reasons.

Staff writers Jerry Markon, Maria Glod and Eric M. Weiss and staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.