Tuesday, October 23, 2007

How we found out about the gun threat

This afternoon we got a tip that Daniel Petric, the 16-year-old accused of killing his mother and shooting his father, had been in trouble before.
He brought a gun to school, the tipster told me.
That was a little puzzling because we were told by the schools yesterday that he had been home-schooled until recently. This gun incident supposedly happened two years ago.
We didn't think we would have much luck getting information from the school -- and not because they told us something different yesterday. We thought we would get stymied by privacy issues.
"How about the police?" reporter Shawn Foucher said. "If he brought a gun to school, there should be a police report."
Isn't it great to be surrounded by resourceful news people?
Sure enough, Shawn got the Wellington police to provide us with a police report.
The incident, as you probably read on our Web site, actually happened four years ago ... and he didn't bring a gun, according to the police report, he threatened to bring a gun.
The home-schooled allegation? We're still trying to get to the bottom of that.
But the anonymous tipster did set us on a path of discovery and for that I'd like to thank him or her.
And if you see something or hear something about anything you think could be newsworthy, please let us know.
If there is something there, we'll track it down.

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