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Teen Who Plotted School Attack Gets 10 Years Probation

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By GEORGE WILKENS

gwilkens@tampatrib.com

Published: March 4, 2009

DADE CITY - A Zephyrhills teen with access to guns and a map detailing plans to shoot up his school was sentenced today to a lengthy probation term after pleading guilty.

George Paul Adams, then a student at Moore-Mickens Education Center, was arrested at the school Aug. 27 on charges of making written threats to kill or do bodily harm, and disrupting a school function.

His plot fell apart after telling one too many students what he had in mind and word was leaked to authorities, who moved quickly to make the arrest.

Police said the teen made threats on his My Space social networking page and removed a copy of the school's evacuation route map from his fifth-period art class. He used the document to initiate mapping the plan for a shooting spree, according to the arrest report.

Adams sketched arrows and staging areas on the map, indicating he planned to go from the school office to the cafeteria and then to multiple classrooms, police said.

"I really hate everyone at school and they mare [sic] me want to do wut [sic] did last year but really kill," stated a blog on his My Space page two days before his arrest. On that Web page he characterized his mood as "enraged."

He later told authorities he was angry about being held back a grade.

"Very few people are going to think this is a good idea," Circuit Judge Pat Siracusa said in placing Adams on 10 years probation, rejecting prosecutors' recommended two years in prison. While not minimizing "hysteria" the 16-year-old caused, Siracusa characterized the defendant as "just too young and foolish to understand how the world works."

Moore-Mickens Principal Steve Cox spoke on Adams' behalf, saying the expelled teen is now working to earn a GED at another facility Cox oversees.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433.

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