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A St. Olaf’s College student was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree assault and terroristic threats after police confiscated from his dorm room ammunition magazines, knives and other items they believe he intended to use to commit a “mass casualty event” on campus, The StarTribune reported Tuesday.
Officials at the Minnesota college first became suspicious of Waylon Kurts, a sophomore from Montpelier, Vt., after a custodian found two empty packages of high-capacity magazines that belonged to him in a garbage can outside some dorm rooms.
A search of Kurts’s room turned up a tactical vest, empty ammunition and magazine boxes, a tactical knife, firearm earmuffs, propane canisters, lighter fluid, a battery with wires, and a lock pick set, according to The StarTribune.
Police also found notebooks with details about a plot to steal ammunition from a retailer, information on police radio frequencies and a “hand-drawn map” of the recreational facility on campus—including arrows apparently marking “an exit path,” according to the criminal complaint filed by the County Attorney’s Office.
“At this stage in the investigation, it appears that the targeted building was Skoglund-Tostrud (the recreational facility on campus) and that both firearms and explosives would be used in an attack,” the memo read.
Furthermore, the evidence suggests “he was not alone in planning this mass casualty event,” according to the memo. “At this time, it is unclear who Kurts was targeting whether students, faculty, staff, or law enforcement.” No firearms were recovered.
Kurts was suspended from St. Olaf’s and remains in jail on $100,000 bail.
Defense lawyer Paul Rogosheske said that Kurts “has some things that look funny,” but “the state has nothing there that is a threat against anybody.”
He said the items taken from Kurts’s room could be explained by the fact that his client “shoots a lot” with his family in Vermont.
