June 20 (Reuters) - Two teenage boys have been charged with helping a student accused of planning a massacre at his southern Minnesota high school make and test explosives, police said on Friday.
The boys, both 17, were charged as juveniles with felonies and did not know about the attack plan, which was thwarted in late April when police received a report that a suspicious person had entered a storage unit in Waseca, Minnesota, authorities said.
The charges announced Friday stemmed from an investigation into an alleged plot by John David LaDue, 17, who is accused of planning to kill his family as a diversion and then set off home-made bombs at his high school in Waseca and shoot fleeing students.
Police have said they believed LaDue was planning to carry out an attack within weeks. He had written extensively in a journal about the plans and amassed gun powder, ball bearings, firearms and ammunition that were recovered in searches at the storage unit and his family home, a criminal complaint said.
One of the two teens charged admitted buying 15 pounds of potassium perchlorate for LaDue, and both admitted helping him make small explosives that they tested in Waseca, according to criminal complaints.
In addition, Michael Jacobs, 40, has been charged with failing to notify law enforcement that he had sold a handgun and magazine to LaDue in 2013, which police said he acquired for his alleged attack plan, a separate criminal complaint said.
According to the complaint, Jacobs thought the handgun was for LaDue's father.
LaDue has been charged as a juvenile with multiple counts of attempted murder, attempted criminal damage to property and possession of an explosive or incendiary device by a person under age 18. Prosecutors are seeking to try him as an adult. (Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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