3 teens arrested in Iowa school threat

Three students accused of plotting in coded letters to attack classmates and staff at their high school have been arrested after one of the suspects alerted the principal, officials said Wednesday.

The trio had access to guns at home, but they had not taken any action to take them when Stephen Copeland, 16, confessed to his principal at Central Lee High School on Monday, said Jim Sholl, Lee County sheriff's chief deputy.

Copeland, Jacob Schulte, 15, Dalton Bird, 17, and were arrested early Tuesday and charged with conspiring to attack the school Tuesday or Wednesday, Sholl said.

He declined to say whether he believed the students would have carried out the attacks.

"But I don't think law enforcement, or society, can stop and wonder if this is joke or how serious it is," he said. "We better deal with this from the start in a serious manner. It's easier to apologize later for a mistake than deliver death messages because we didn't do enough."

He declined to discuss a possible motive.

Schulte and Bird remained in custody Wednesday. Copeland was released to his grandmother, Sholl said.

John Henriksen, Central Lee superintendent, said investigators were conducting interviews Wednesday with students at the high school in the southeastern Iowa town of Donnellson, which has about 350 students.