This story, originally published on April 18, 2024 at 1:03 p.m., was updated on April 19, 2024 at 10:55 a.m. to add Ye’s attorney information and trial date.
An 18-year-old Wootton High School student was arrested Wednesday for allegedly planning to commit a school shooting at a Montgomery County school, county police and Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) said in statements Thursday.
Alex Ye of Rockville was charged with threats of mass violence and is being held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit. Ye is awaiting a bond hearing, which is scheduled for Friday, and their trial is set for June 3, according to digital court records.
Ye’s attorney, Paulette Pagán, did not immediately respond to a request for comment via phone on Friday morning.
On March 3, Ye sent a 129-page “fictional story/manifesto about a high school shooting” to someone they knew when they were undergoing inpatient treatment at a psychiatric facility, according to charging documents. The documents refer to the individual as “Witness-One.”
According to charging documents, “the story focused on a transgender main character being bullied in school and other issues that Witness-One believed were directly from Ye’s life and not indicative of fiction.”
The witness said that the book indicated that Ye was planning the shooting for “the next day,” and contacted Baltimore County Police, who then reached out to Rockville City Police, charging documents said.
Also, the individual told police that Ye “was in treatment for suicidal and homicidal thoughts,” according to charging documents.
According to charging documents, on March 6, Ye was evaluated and taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda on the strength of an Emergency Evaluation Petition. An Emergency Evaluation Petition is “a way to get a person who presents a danger to the life or safety of themselves or others to an emergency room to be examined,” according to the
Maryland Courts website.
On March 13, Montgomery County police Sgt. Justin Saffar was alerted that “Suburban Hospital staff were concerned enough with the threat posed by Ye that they felt they were required by law to break [confidentiality] to notify law enforcement and Wootton High School. The FBI was also notified,” according to charging documents.
A couple of days later, FBI agents interviewed a counselor at Wootton’s wellness center, who worked with Ye from October 2022 to February 2023, charging documents said.
According to charging documents, during that time, Ye “would express violent thoughts such as shooting up the school, wanting to hurt other people, and would smile while saying it,” and told the counselor that they were “looking up on the Internet how to get a gun and how to get into the school, laws, and certain loopholes.”
Ye told the counselor they wanted to shoot up Wootton and their elementary school, Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville, charging documents said.
Then, while in the hospital, Ye referred to the manifesto as a “memoir” and told hospital staff they were searching for “mass shootings” and “school shootings” via the social media app Discord, according to charging documents.
On March 21, Saffar executed a search warrant of Ye’s home, finding numerous messages on his phone and computer, saying things like “my homicidal ideation has been getting worse lately to the point [that] I might act on it eventually,” and “I feel like shooting people would be fun and causing fear,” charging documents stated.
Also, Saffar obtained access to Ye’s Google searches and found that Ye repeatedly searched for information about different school shootings, such as the Parkland and Sandy Hook mass shootings, charging documents said.
Due to the findings of the investigation, the county police’s Community Engagement Division coordinated with MCPS to increase security in schools, specifically Wootton, according to the police statement.
MCPS sent a statement to the community Thursday about the arrest, saying that Ye has not attended in-person classes at a MCPS school since the fall of 2022 and has been taking lessons through a virtual program called Online Pathways to Graduation.
“This matter is an ongoing police investigation, and because of student privacy law (FERPA), MCPS cannot share any other information,” the statement said.
MCPS reassured community members, saying that the school system is collaborating with county police to “support student safety and ensure a high level of safety for the entire community.”