NORRISTOWN, Pa. — A 14-year-old boy who admitted that he planned a Columbine-style attack on a high school outside Philadelphia was sentenced Wednesday to as many as seven years in a juvenile treatment facility.
Dillon Cossey will remain in the facility until he turns 21, unless the courts decide he has been sufficiently rehabilitated before then, Montgomery County Judge Paul Tressler ruled.
The boy apologized in court for amassing a cache of weapons and plotting the assault on Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.
Authorities do not think Dillon was close to pulling it off; he had no ammunition.
Dillon, who was arrested in October, told a friend that he wanted to pull off an attack similar to the 1999 assault on Columbine High School in Colorado, saying “the world would be better off without bullies,” according to prosecutors.
Authorities have accused his mother, Michele, of helping him build his weapons stash. She is awaiting trial on charges of illegally buying him a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic rifle.
