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The 15-year-old Benson Polytechnic High School student who officials say last month brought a bag of chemicals to school and mixed them in the cafeteria, releasing a toxic cloud, will remain in a secure residential psychiatric inpatient facility rather than juvenile detention.
The Portland student has been accused of more than a dozen felonies, including domestic terrorism and attempted murder. The charges were filed in juvenile court, but Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez said earlier this month that prosecutors will seek to have the teen tried as an adult, which has not typically been successful in Multnomah County.
The teen has been held in the Parry Center, a secure psychiatric inpatient treatment facility, since being charged, but prosecutors Wednesday sought to have him moved to juvenile detention.
“This youth needs to be in custody. He needs to be in custody today,” prosecutor Eric Zimmerman said.
Judge Amy Holmes Hehn ruled Wednesday that the youth be allowed to remain out of custody but barred him from attending the psychiatric facility’s school building, where multiple parents of alleged victims work. The judge also ordered that an alternative facility be sought.
Prosecutors said three parents of children believed to be victims in the case work at the psychiatric facility where the teen has been held. Two parents of students who were feet from the teenager in the cafeteria provided anonymous testimony.
“I have a sense of rage,” one said. “I have a deep sense of sadness.”
He said his job has been impacted because of the teen’s presence at his place of employment.
Another parent said his child was within arm’s reach of the teen when the incident occurred.
“Even though he largely failed, he did impact my family deeply,” the parent said. “My child is tormented and cries every day. School won’t ever be the same for them.”
Defense lawyers Noah Horst and Norah Van Dusen argued that being removed from inpatient psychiatric treatment would pose a serious risk to the youth’s life.
“It is not just that we are talking about a low-level mental health need,” Van Dusen said. “We are talking about his life.”
Silvia Gomez, a juvenile services senior manager, said detention is “not a trauma-informed environment” and said staff were not equipped to deal with the teen’s “profound symptoms.”
“We’re consistently looking at how do we move young people who have serious mental health issues into the appropriate places,” Gomez said.
Moving the teen from the treatment facility to detention would be going backward, she said.
Zimmerman also brought new charges against the teen for a previous alleged incident involving reckless burning.
During the Sept. 8 incident at the Northeast Portland high school, the school’s vice principals and a school nurse performed CPR on the teen, who’d been exposed to the chemicals, and used an automated external defibrillator. The teen was hospitalized and later transferred to Unity Center for Behavioral Health, a mental health treatment facility.
The incident prompted an evacuation of the school. Emergency medical personnel evaluated more than 100 students and staff that day, though no others were hospitalized. Benson high school remained closed the following day and then reopened.
The Oregonian/OregonLive is not naming the teen at this time.
Prosecutors earlier this month provided a detailed account of what unfolded in the cafeteria. A Portland police detective reviewed school surveillance video, which showed the teen “arriving with a large backpack, wearing gloves, goggles and dark clothing.” He sat alone as he began mixing the compounds from his bag, prosecutors said. Zimmerman said students could be seen on the video holding their noses and covering their faces from the fumes.
Some of the material spilled onto the floor, and the teen passed out, the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors identified the substances as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen cyanide.
A police detective also reviewed the teen’s social media activity, which revealed a “long-standing fixation” with mixing hazardous compounds and creating explosives, Zimmerman said, as well as online statements about “violent ideations, references to kill-death ratios” and plans for “public suicide or mass homicide.”
Oregonian reporter Noelle Crombie contributed to this report.
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