Cookeville, TN - Three middle school students are under investigation for allegedly setting a fire inside Avery Trace Middle School in a plot to "set the school on fire so they could be out like Jere Whitson Elementary," according to a report on file at the Cookeville Police Dept.
The arson plot involved "several girls," but three girls actually set the fire and have been suspended from school, police said.
The fire was minor and was quickly put out by a teacher, who grabbed a fire extinguisher after being alerted by another student. It happened on Wednesday around noon on the second floor of the 7th and 8th grade school, according to Police Chief Bob Terry.
ATMS Principal Linda Nash and Assistant Principal Corby King conducted an internal investigation after the incident and also notified police.
According to the police report, the principals said a group of seven girls had been "sitting in a classroom discussing setting the school on fire so they could be out like Jere Whitson Elementary School."
A fire which began in a ceiling at Jere Whitson on Saturday, March 17, destroyed much of that building, and the school's 350 students are now attending school in temporary quarters.
The ATMS principals told police officers that of the seven girls who plotted the arson of their building, two had brought cigarette lighters to school "and were squirting Germ-X hand sanitizer on their desks and then setting it on fire during the (arson) discussion." Then, after their class actually started, two of the girls decided to carry out the plan and asked for permission to go the restroom, where they got a handful of paper towels, the principals told police. After the class was over and students were changing rooms during a break, three girls went to an empty locker on the second floor of the school, put the paper towels into the locker, and two of them set fire to the towels.
"After the fire was set, all three ran from the area in front of at least three witnesses," the police report says. "Everyone in the area started smelling smoke and an anonymous student went and got a teacher, who grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the fire out before any alarms went off or serious damage was done."
As of today, no charges had been filed, but detectives were still investigating. |
