Local authorities in New York announced on Tuesday that they arrested three men and one teenager for their involvement in a plot targeting the Muslin community of Islamberg, about 150 miles northwest of New York City.
Police arrested three men: Brian Colaneri, 20, Andrew Crysel, 18, and Vincent Vetromile, 19, in connection with the incident, according to Reuters.
Each of the men face weapons and conspiracy charges over the alleged plot, as does a teen, whose identity has not yet been revealed due to his age.
{mosads}Local police said the teen who was arrested is a 16-year-old student who attended Odyssey Academy, a school located in Greece, New York. They say the teen showed classmates a photo of a person that the teen claimed looked like a potential school shooter.
“He looks like the next school shooter, doesn’t he?” Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan quoted the student showing the photo as saying.
The remark alarmed other students and staff at the school. Security at the school and local police then interviewed both the student in the photo and the student who had showed the photo off, according to Reuters.
That in turn led to a deeper investigation, search warrants and eventually the arrests of the three men and the teenager who had showed off the photo.
Police said they uncovered 23 firearms, all legally owned. They also found three homemade explosive devices at the teen’s house, according to Reuters.
“If they had carried out this plot, which every indication is that they were going to, people would have died,” Phelan said.
“I don’t know how many and who, but people would have died,” he added.
The report comes several years after a man was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison for also planning to attack the community, according to Reuters.