West Albany, Ore., high school students are praising one of their classmates as a hero. Truman Templeton sounded the alarm that a fellow student was plotting what officials call "mass murder" at his high school. Seventeen-year-old Grant Acord is being held on $2 million bail after his initial court appearance Tuesday.
Police say Acord was planning to crank up the music on his car stereo then walk into West Albany High School tossing firebombs and firing a gun. They say the plans were more than just idle threats. They say they found a half-dozen homemade bombs stashed away at his mother's Albany home.
Prosecutors have charged the teen with aggravated attempted murder and unlawful manufacture and possession of deadly devices. Classes resumed at West Albany High after the long weekend. Tanner Whitley is a senior there.
“I feel okay about it," says Whitley. "I didn't feel like anything was going to happen. But it was just kind of scary coming back from that because it seemed so close."
Whitley says he didn't know Grant Acord very well. But another student did. Police confirm that West Albany junior Truman Templeton was the one who supplied the information that led to the arrest of Acord. With the Twitter hashtag “honor Truman,” Templeton is being praised for likely saving many lives.
Northwest News Network
