Boy who threatened to kill football coaches will be jailed until 21st birthday

PORT ANGELES — The 14-year-old Sequim boy who plotted to kill three high school football coaches will be incarcerated until his 21st birthday.

Following prosecutors’ recommendations for the standard range, Clallam County Superior Court Judge George Wood on Friday imposed a sentence of about six years to 7½ years — plus an additional year for a firearm enhancement — for the boy, who was convicted last month of attempted murder and other crimes.

Attorneys for the teen, whose name is being withheld because he was tried as a juvenile, had sought a sentence lower than the standard range, citing two separate evaluations that suggest the boy suffers from a mental health condition.

Several of the boy’s family members also wrote letters to Judge Wood, detailing a difficult childhood filled with medical and emotional issues, from being abandoned by his mother to losing one whole kidney and part of the other at age 6.

Release in 2011

The boy should be released from incarceration on June 3, 2011, which is his 21st birthday, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Tracey Lassus said.

He has no prior criminal history.

The teen was convicted March 21 of robbery, assault, unlawful possession of a firearm, taking a motor vehicle without permission while armed with a firearm, and three counts of first-degree attempted murder.

Investigators said he dressed in camouflage clothing and face paint, pointed a loaded shotgun at his stepmother and demanded the car keys, then set off in the minivan from his Sequim home for the Sequim High School bus barn on a Saturday, arriving two hours after the high school football team had departed for a game in Tacoma.

He was arrested later on that day, Oct. 30, after leading law enforcement officers on a high-speed chase on U.S. Highway 101 and state Highway 104 into Kitsap County, crashing into three vehicles and aiming a shotgun at a state trooper.

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