Ex-student charged with plotting attack on Las Vegas high school

Cody Pomeroy, a recent Desert Oasis High School graduate, had planned to “shoot up” the school this past Monday, calling the attack a “revenge thing” in at least two recent conversations with a supervisor at work, according to his arrest report.

The report shows that Pomeroy was talking about the planned attack against his alma mater as early as Aug. 16, when he told his assistant manager that he and another employee “were going to shoot up Desert Oasis High school” on Aug. 19.

But the plan fell through, the report states, because his apparent accomplice was sick. The two would instead carry out the attack “next week,” Pomeroy told his assistant manager.

At the time of his arrest on Tuesday, Pomeroy was working at a fast food restaurant about 3 miles north of the high school.

The name of his alleged co-conspirator is redacted in the report, and it is unclear whether that person is facing charges in the case. Court and jail records do not list a co-defendant.

Pomeroy, 18, appeared in court for his arraignment Friday morning, when he was formally charged with one count each of making a terroristic threat and possession of an explosive device component with intent to manufacture an explosive device.

The possession charge was tacked on after Las Vegas police detectives found what appeared to be a homemade explosive device, letters and journals during a recent search of his home, according to prosecutor Christopher Pandelis.

The discovery prompted a response from both the Metropolitan Police Department’s ARMOR unit and the Las Vegas Fire Department’s bomb squad, the report shows.

According to the report, Pomeroy admitted to investigators that “he built the device” using parts from fireworks and glass candle jars, saying that he knew the glass would “break and shatter” once the device was ignited.

Detectives wrote in the report that Pomeroy had added the glass to the device “as a component of shrapnel.”

Pomeroy, who last attended Desert Oasis during the 2018-19 school year, was arrested Tuesday after one of his work supervisors walked into a Las Vegas police substation to report the threats — most of which were shared with the assistant manager during work although some were posted to social media, according to the report.

The assistant manager, whose name is redacted in the report, told detectives he at first thought Pomeroy was joking until he asked if the plan was “real.”

“It’s all set. Waiting for the time,” Pomeroy told the assistant manager, according to the report.

The suspect also said the attack was an act of revenge because a current Desert Oasis student was “speaking badly about his group.”

Pandelis said Wednesday during the suspect’s initial court appearance that Pomeroy “had a very, very specific plan in mind about what he was going to do — down to the clothing that he was going to wear when he went to Desert Oasis to carry out this plan,”

The report states that Pomeroy had planned to wear “all white,” and “that would be the signal that the shooting would happen,” the report states.

Questioning Pomeroy’s “psychological well-being” during Wednesday’s hearing, Pandelis also called the material in his journals and letters “concerning,” although the teen’s attorney at the time argued that the letters were “nothing about harming anybody.”

The content of Pomeroy’s letters and journals were not outlined in his arrest report. But the assistant manager told detectives that Pomeroy had mentioned to him that he was depressed and suffered from anxiety.

Pomeroy remains in custody at the Clark County Detention Center on $100,000 bail. His preliminary hearing has been set for Sept. 5.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.