By Alison Knezevich and Liz Bowie
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. — A sophomore at the George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology had explosive devices at his home and told law enforcement officials that he wanted to kill people at the Towson school, Baltimore County police said Monday.
Police said they found three crude, homemade explosive devices and a gun at the 16-year-old’s Monkton home. He was charged as an adult and identified by police as Sash Alexander Nemphos of the 600 Block of Quiet Oaks Lane.
The teen faces charges that include possession of a destructive device, theft and a handgun violation.
Authorities say Nemphos was a suspect in vehicle break-ins that occurred Saturday on York Road in Monkton. When an officer interviewed him, police said, he learned he planned to go the school with a gun and two explosives to kill people.
“I think a majority of the students are shell-shocked right now,” said Ron Anahaw, a 17-year-old senior literary arts major at Carver. Students, he said, are trying to cope with the idea that another student would want to hurt people at the school.
The culture of the school with its diversity of artists, writers and musicians places value on each person, he said.
“It is recognized that every individual in the school is worth something, and is a person and is as important as anyone else in the community,” he said. “No one is ever put down in the school.”
Students and faculty are supportive and don’t want people to fail, he added. “Because there is such a diversity of talent, it is strange that anyone would want to defeat all that,” said Anahaw.
A Baltimore County school administrator said there were no “red flags” that would have alerted school staff that they should have given more attention to Nemphos.
“At this point, nothing has been shared with us [from the school] to give us any indication that this could have happened,” said Maria Lowry, the administrator in charge of Baltimore County high schools. “We had no reason to suspect we had an issue.”
The student’s plan to kill people at the arts school comes two years after a student shot and wounded a fellow student at Perry Hall High School in Baltimore County.
Carver Center parents were being notified by e-mail and phone Monday that the student has been charged. Lowry said school officials did not have specific details from police until about noon Monday, after students had already been dismissed for a day and a half break.
Carver is one of the top-performing schools in the county and is considered a premier arts school, consistently producing top national award winners in the arts. Students go on to prestigious arts colleges and universities.
“The first responding officer in this case did an exceptional job of police work, and thanks to his diligence we intervened in what could have been an extremely serious situation,” Police Chief Jim Johnson said in a statement.
Nemphos was initially charged as a juvenile before his case was waived to adult status in the court system. He is being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center.
Copyright 2014 The Baltimore Sun