Christopher Franko Sentenced: New York Teen Gets Prison For Plotting Columbine-Style School Attack

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A suburban New York teenager will spend three to nine years in prison after admitting he plotted a Columbine-type assault on his former high school for the second time in three years.

Christopher Franko pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Court on New York's Long Island on Monday and was immediately sentenced.

Franko, who is 18, was charged with conspiring to attack former classmates at Connetquot High School in Bohemia. He was arrested in 2007 for plotting a similar attack but was deemed a youthful offender. The Family Court file on that case is sealed.

A 2010 indictment on the second plot says Franko made a diagram of the high school, searched online to learn how and where to purchase gunpowder, and how to make a pipe and chlorine bomb.

Comments

[Widespread Panic]

04:03 PM on 02/20/2011

Red flags should have gone up after he was caught plotting his first attack. The kid needed help, lots of it. Maybe if, instead of "deeming him a youthful offender", and letting him go, they could have gotten him some intensive counseling.

[Danek Greori]

01:33 AM on 02/18/2011

"school shooting" is the term. When are we gonna stop refering to every attempt by a student to harm their peers as a "Columbine-type attack"

[vtrob77]

02:27 PM on 02/17/2011

so thinking about and planning a crime is crime? what's the difference between what this guy has done and crime writers? ooo maybe mental health issues?

Again the criminal justice system being utilized when the mental health system should be taking the lead. .snark

[Fletch17C]

11:33 AM on 02/20/2011

This guy wasn't "thinking" about planning an attack. He was actually planning an attack. He was armed and ready to go.

[justan olnamvet]

03:33 PM on 02/15/2011

The law should do an analyses of the Unibomber and this kid to see what makes them tick.

[beasteben]

05:43 PM on 02/15/2011

pun intended?! tick boom!

[awarg]

03:00 PM on 02/15/2011

This revolving door of justice makes only one thing- better criminals. It does not take care of the real problem- mental health.

[beasteben]

05:42 PM on 02/15/2011

YUP

[WheresMyParty]

01:30 PM on 02/15/2011

Something tells me this guy will not be very popular with his fellow inmates. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.

[Travis M]

01:20 PM on 02/15/2011

You mean I can't search online to find out how to make a bomb..?? what is the web for then?

[gh0st]

01:39 PM on 02/15/2011

pr0n...duh!

[ApprxAm]

01:05 PM on 02/15/2011

nine years...then what?

[justan olnamvet]

03:29 PM on 02/15/2011

Back to thinking and looking at the computer. Good thing he didn't actually make or use a weapon. Probably would have been worse for him.

[jedwightn]

12:27 PM on 02/15/2011

Another copycat mentally disturbed, pi**ed off white boy. I wonder how more are out there ready to pop. Parents, pay attention to what your kids are doing. If they're torturing the family pet, do society a favor and get the kid some help!

[NYCannibal]

01:21 PM on 02/15/2011

Right now the tea party is breeding a whole new crop of them, sad to say.

[TeeSC]

05:41 PM on 02/15/2011

My God... isn't that the truth. 

[bradenton]

12:17 PM on 02/15/2011

Why is it always the good looking ones?

[gene poole]

01:31 PM on 02/15/2011

Perhaps you're confusing 'good looking' with 'young?'

[gtoddyt5]

02:34 PM on 02/15/2011

Perhaps he/she is making a joke...

[catcancook]

11:57 AM on 02/15/2011

I'm not defending him. But I felt that his problems might be related to his IQ and I had a feeling he was LD. Reading further, he and his would be accomplice a female, were both LD students and attended (she still attends) a special education program.

It's really important to note that LD students usually are profiled early on and can be separated from their smarter peers to attend special education classes. These classes while usually very helpful academically, can stigmatize a student and bring on bullying from the smarter students and can start as early as 3rd grade. Few kids are immune to the taunts from peers, being called "stupid" when they attend special education classes.

My child had to go to 1 special ed class one hour a day starting in lst grade and immediately his friends turned against him and started calling him names. He was not only hurt but humiliated. We got counseling right away and he was moved to a private school in 5th grade and never had to attend special ed classes again. It took a long time before he recovered from being made fun of for 4 years by his own friends who thought it was funny to call him "stupid" and laugh.

This kid may be very sick mentally. But I don't think jail is the answer. He will come out even more dangerous imo.

[ApprxAm]

01:16 PM on 02/15/2011

But your child didn't threaten an entire student body and faculty. Yes being teased is terrible, but this young man, mentally deficient or worse, has shown himself incapable of properly dealing with what is a universal problem. If not teasing, what else: social rejection? unrequited love?

He's a ticking time-bomb (no pun) that requires an untenable commitment for society itself to change in order for [him] to function without resorting to mass extinction. Not all social misfits are as dangerous as this fellow and God help the next individual that merely appears to have slighted his fragile psyche.

[catcancook]

01:42 PM on 02/15/2011

I can see how this can build in a young kid who already may have issues with low IQ, learning problems (brain wiring) and usually those things come with a list of other problems that ride on in with LD. He probably needed therapy long ago before the wound festered and emerged as a psychosis. Will jail help him? I don't think it will. It may exacerbate his violence tendencies.

He will get out of jail at some point and he may be even worse. This is an old cycle in this country. The jails are full of males who did not get the help they needed before they became violent and went to jail. They don't become upstanding men in jail because their teachers are other incarcerated men. Jail school doesn't redeem an individual and turn them into a model citizen usually.

[Six Gator]

01:39 PM on 02/15/2011

since you didn't list an alternative, can we assume you dont have a suggestion?...Its OK most simply want to say how WRONG it is to lock up a guy who WANTS to kill?...Yeah, that's pretty typical! --that and suggesting that this mental patient goes to "therapy" where someone will rubber-stamp his slow, but noticed, progress whilst milking the state out of millions of dollars (collectively).
The end result is this person getting released from "care" and being told to medicate himself (herself) That never works out like it should, and several months later, they stop for whatever reason. Another month goes by and my brother ends up on a slab....or, parts of him anyway..

Yeah, taunting is bad; --and if YOUR kid participates in that (not you personally, but "you" generally) you should step in and stop it...however, because an individual has been inflicted like this, does not mean they should be roaming te streets. Particulalry because the billable hours have been used up, and the "suit-in-the-room" no longer benefits from "helping" them!

Everyone would love it if we could afford to house these individuals in a country club setting and have them sleep on rose petals every night, and drinking Perrier water -but that's just not possible. --The 1.5 trillion $ debt means even the insane have to do more, with less. How 'bout we make the baby makers take responsibility?...Or would THAT be asking too much?

[gh0st]

01:54 PM on 02/15/2011

"Everyone would love it if we could...country club setting and have them sleep on rose petals every night, and drinking Perrier water"

Wow...I don't even agree with the OP and...um...wow...Just for the record, I am not one of those "everyone". I guess that has to be clarified in the modern "debate".

[catcancook]

02:04 PM on 02/15/2011

I'm sorry Gator but your tone doesn't make me want to have a discussion with you. I don't have all the answers in this case and no one but those involved really do.

My point was, that I'd like to see these violent males who DO get out of prison not go off and kill someone because of how they were treated in prison. That happens all the time in this country and no one seems to know how to solve this. Send an 18 yr old screwed up kid into prison and he comes out worse after serving 9 years in jail school with other prisoners.

He may not be in the condition to ever be helped but I sure hope they find this out before they let him out of prison. Just locking someone up isn't the answer. Finding out what is wrong with them and If they can be helped, then help them so that they don't go out and harm someone when they are released. If he is mentally a certified psychopath, prison is only a temp fix for him.

[LouGots]

11:53 AM on 02/15/2011

I have seen a lot of comments echoing my initial appraisal of the incomplete account in the lead story. It does look like it falls short of the legal definition of a criminal attempt.

We need to read some of the "Around the Web" links. There's a lot more to it. It was a good conspiracy prosecution.

[clearthinker16]

11:49 AM on 02/15/2011

and in places while he is awaiting trial and after he gets out of prison he can get a gun

[totaldisbelief]

11:43 AM on 02/15/2011

I'm sure he'll be a "better person" when he gets out of prison.

[linusSunshine]

11:15 AM on 02/19/2011

i doubt it!!

[Austro-libertarian]

11:35 AM on 02/15/2011

Not "criticize", I meant 'attack him'..