ELLSWORTH (AP) – One of two students who were expelled from Bucksport High School for making a music compact disc with lyrics containing graphic descriptions of a school shooting has been charged with terrorizing.
Jonathan Hayes, 17, of Bucksport is scheduled to appear Friday in juvenile court in Ellsworth.
Hayes and fellow student Colton Crane, 17, were the members of the band Double S Rydas, who wrote and performed the songs on the CD. Among the songs was “Shotgun Killing Spree,” which described a shooting spree inside a high school and specifically mentioned the shooting of the principal and vice principal as well as teachers and students.
The lyrics referred to Colorado’s Columbine High School and, at the end of the song, to Bucksport High School.
The charge against Hayes was filed Wednesday by the Hancock County District Attorney’s Office. Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett said she was barred by state law from commenting on whether any other student would be charged.
Dismissing claims by some students that the two boys were exercising their free speech rights, Kellett said the threat of violence in the schools is very real. Just as making a bomb threat in a school is a crime, so is threatening violence in the school, whether or not the boys intended to act on the threat, she said.
“This issue is that they made the threat; people thought it could happen and were frightened by it,” Kellett said.
Some students supported the two boys and indicated they were not upset by the lyrics, but other students and their parents said the songs on the CD created a climate of fear at the school.
Hayes and Crane were expelled from the school earlier this fall.
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