Conditional sentence for making e-mail threats to shoot a female friend
Date: May 5, 2007 10:24 AM
PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator
DATE: 2007.05.05
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Local
PAGE: A8
BYLINE: Barbara Brown
SOURCE: The Hamilton Spectator
WORD COUNT: 593

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Conditional sentence for school threat

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His psychologist says Helmut Contreras is a changed person a year after
being arrested for making e-mail threats to shoot a female friend along
with other students and staff of St. Jean de Brebeuf high school.

Hamilton police considered the 19-year-old student a Columbine copycat
when they charged Contreras on April 21, 2006 with uttering a death
threat and breaching his probation.

Even after his release on bail on strict terms of house arrest, Hamilton
police took the threatened shooting spree extremely seriously and
implemented a city-wide strategy to beef up security at local high
schools.

Contreras, now 20, pleaded guilty to the charges on April 11 this year.

He was convicted just five days before Seung Hui Cho, a mentally
deranged student from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., opened fire on
campus, killing 32 students and staff and wounding many more before
committing suicide.

The Virginia Tech tragedy and Columbine High School massacre in
Littleton, Colo. in 1999 were clearly on the minds of Ontario Court
Justice Anton Zuraw and the lawyers involved in Contreras’s sentencing
yesterday.

Zuraw accepted a joint recommendation from the defence and Crown for a
15- month conditional sentence and two years of probation. The community
supervision order would allow Contreras outside his home only three
hours a day for the first three months, then gradually lessen
restrictions on his freedom.

“A crime like this strikes a chord with the entire community because at
many schools and workplaces such threats as this have become a reality
and many innocents have died,” said Zuraw.

Defence lawyer Beth Bromberg filed a psychological report from Dr.
Jeffrey Wong, who said Contreras had matured while under house arrest.

He said Contreras did not suffer from a major mental illness and does
not exhibit any symptoms of depression, anxiety or psychosis.

Wong said Contreras no longer kept his feelings bottled up inside and
now appreciated the support of his family.

“There is no evidence of any difficulties with feelings of frustration
or anger,” noted Wong.

Bromberg said the school-shooting fantasy had started out as a joke
among Contreras and a few friends, but became a threat and act of
intimidation after a female friend hurt his feelings.

“Teenagers should remember that when they’re talking to people in
e-mails, Facebook or MSN, they are talking to real people who will take
what they say seriously.

“You have to be careful what you say. In terms of the law, if you make a
threat, even if you have no intention of ever following through, you are
guilty of a criminal offence.”

Bromberg said Contreras was having difficulties at the time dealing with
unresolved grief for his mother, who died from a lingering illness. He
had recently suffered another loss when a close friend died of leukemia.

“At first it was a bunch of kids who were just joking, but ultimately he
turned it into a threat and that’s when it became a crime,” said
Bromberg.

The female student told a teacher about Contreras’s threatening e-mail
and the information was passed along to police.

According to rumours at the school, the shootings were to take place
June 6, 2006 — a date synonymous with 666, the occult symbol for the
antichrist, also known as the sign of the devil.

After interviewing students and staff, police executed a search warrant
at Contreras’s home. They seized a number of items from his bedroom,
including a satanic bible, two cap guns, a chef’s knife, a handwritten
report on the Columbine massacre and a hand-drawn map of St. Jean de
Brebeuf school, showing its floor plan and exits.

Assistant Crown attorney Andrew Bell said, although the threatened
school shooting never went beyond a statement of intention, it was not
merely impulsive. He said the plan was worked out and discussed among
Contreras and his friends over a period of time.

“It was not a joke to the student who reported the threat. It was not a
joke to school administrators and it was not a joke to the Hamilton
Police Service,” said Bell.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !