An 18-year-old student at Ontario Christian High School has been arrested and charged after investigators learned that he planned to shoot five students at his school and had researched police response times and tactical supplies, Ontario Police Chief Michael Lorenz said Wednesday, Feb. 14.
Investigators learned that Sebastian Bailey Villaseñor “was fixated on school shootings and had access to weapons,” Lorenz said.
Police who searched Villaseñor’s Eastvale home seized seven rifles, three handguns, a shotgun and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, Lorenz said. He said the teen’s father legally owned the weapons.
Villaseñor was charged Wednesday with five counts of attempted murder and one count of attempted criminal threat, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said. He is due to be arraigned in Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday.
The criminal complaint said he targeted five “Jane Doe” students at the school.
Villaseñor was being held without bail at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. The county jail log shows he was arrested at a home in Eastvale.
Villaseñor went so far as to map out the distance from the Ontario police station on Archibald Avenue to the school on W. Philadelphia Street (about 5 miles) to estimate police response times and was in the process of choosing a date for the attack, Lorenz said.
“Villaseñor had every intention of carrying out a school shooting at the Ontario Christian School,” Lorenz said.
The chief said Villaseñor did not have a “hit list” or “manifesto.” But through interviews, investigators learned of five or possibly six specific targets.
He said Villaseñor was acting alone.
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The investigation began when a student who learned that there may be a plot told school officials on Feb. 8. High school principal Ben Dykhouse then alerted police. After conducting interviews, police arrested Villaseñor on Saturday. Villaseñor has been a student at Ontario Christian High for two years, Dykhouse said.
“We’re grateful to God for his protection, we’re grateful for the Ontario police for the excellent work … and we’re grateful to a student who was brave enough to say something when he saw that something was off,” Dykhouse said at an afternoon news conference at the Ontario police station.
Villaseñor had no known disciplinary or legal troubles, Lorenz and Dykhouse said.
Lorenz said Villaseñor was not a loner or considered troubled, nor had he been bullied. But he had difficulty forming relationships and with social interactions.
Dykhouse said the arrest was proof that security and the see-something-say-something culture at the school worked but that the school would be “bolstering what is in place.”
The high school campus is separate from Ontario Christian School’s Euclid Avenue campus that houses preschool, elementary and middle school classes. The high school has 390 students, according to its website. The other schools’ enrollments total about 800.
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