ROY — A plot by two Roy High School students to kill fellow classmates in what court documents described as a Columbine-style massacre was in its final planning stages, Police Chief Greg Whinham said Thursday.
When asked by reporters during a news conference to gauge on a scale of one to 10 the imminent threat of the bomb plot, Whinham quickly responded.
“It was a 10 for me (Wednesday), but it’s a one today,” he said.
Dallin Todd Morgan, 18, and Joshua Kyler Hoggan, 16, both students at Roy High School, have been arrested in connection with the planned attack.
Whinham said it is unclear if Morgan and Hoggan actually intended to carry out the plot or whether it was just a dark fantasy.
“The reality is it doesn’t change (the criminal act),” he said. “You can’t have certain fantasies. You can’t make certain threats. You can’t say I’m going to blow somebody up.”
According to the probable cause affidavit, Hoggan told a police interviewer he was fascinated by the April 20, 1999, mass shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. Hoggan said he flew to Colorado on Dec. 12, 2011, and interviewed Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis, which DeAngelis confirmed to authorities.
Some Roy High School students said Thursday it’s difficult to know whether the plot posed an actual threat.
“It was probably some kids just trying to get attention,” said Rocky Hatch, a junior at Roy High who doesn’t know Morgan and Hoggan. “But it might have been real.”
Morgan, 18, was booked into Weber County Jail on Wednesday on suspicion of possession of explosives, according to a jail booking log. He has since been released on $10,000 bail.
A news release from the Roy Police Department said Morgan and Hoggan, who was transported to Weber Valley Detention Center, were taken into custody for conspiracy.
Information was not available Thursday regarding whether Hoggan remained at the youth facility.
A Standard-Examiner reporter went to Morgan’s home Thursday afternoon seeking comment but no one answered the door.
Roy High School administrators were able to identify Morgan and Hoggan on Wednesday after being alerted by a student who received a frightening text message from one of the suspects, Whinham said.
Nate Taggart, spokesman for the Weber School District, said that first report “gave administrators the ability to make connections, and find out who the players were.”
Taggart said authorities were notified and the two were taken into custody.
He described Morgan and Hoggan as “typical kids, involved in different activities.”
Taggart praised the student who first reported suspicions to the administration.
“We hope other students who might find themselves in the same situation would have the courage to do the same thing.”
Whinham said search warrants were served Wednesday night at the homes of Morgan and Hoggan, but he did not release specific details about what was found. However, he did say the FBI has been asked to analyze computer evidence.
The probable cause arrest affidavit filed Thursday in 2nd District Court and obtained by the Standard-Examiner details text messages from Hoggan about setting off a bomb at a school assembly and stealing an airplane from Ogden-Hinckley Airport as a get-away.
Police uncovered evidence that one of the suspects logged hundreds of hours on a high-tech flight simulator computer program at home, Whinham said, but he would not identify which suspect. According to the affidavit, Hoggan told a police officer he had practiced on such a flight simulator.
Police also recovered maps of Roy High School and information about its security systems.
Police from agencies throughout Northern Utah with at least a half-dozen bomb sniffing dogs and personnel from the Weber County Bomb Disposal Unit and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Roy High School on Wednesday night. No explosives were found.
“We spent about 2 1/2 hours and looked at every potential nook and cranny,” Whinham said.
Police have not determined a possible motive for such an attack.
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you right now why these boys were thinking and doing the things they were doing,” Whinham said at the news conference.
Police hope to learn from the incident to prevent similar threats in the future, Whinham said.
“When I can fully appreciate what makes someone tick mentally, then I will solve all the problems. It’s hard to know what makes them tick and motivates them. That’s why this event is so important to know everything we possibly can.”
Ever since the Columbine shootings in which students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher and wounded 21 others before killing themselves, the Roy Police Department has been preparing for a similar type of attack, Whinham said.
“We’ve been working hard to change how law enforcement would deploy to active shooters … and threats in schools,” he said.
Whinham also said he’s sympathetic to what Morgan and Hoggan’s families must be going through.
“These are good families who otherwise have everything going the way they would hope it would go,” he said. “Now they are faced with this trying to understand it the same as we are.”
Probable Cause Statement - Editor's note: The Standard-Examiner redacted names of witnesses included in this statement
Letter sent to parents of RHS students
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