Former cheerleader was picked on by other students

One of the two girls jailed Monday for allegedly making online threats to shoot up McIntosh High School was a one-time cheerleader there, several sources said.

The student was a junior at McIntosh and was reportedly taunted by other students at the school because of her weight, sources have told The Citizen. Students used crude names such as “Thunder Thighs,” and others to poke fun of the girl, the sources said.

The other girl, a freshman who was enrolled in Booth Middle School last year, was being homeschooled at the time of her arrest Monday though she previously had been enrolled at the county’s alternative school, sources have said.

The two were arrested for conspiring online to get their friends out of school, commit the shootings and then kill themselves, police said.

Though they remained in jail pending the next hearing in Fayette County Juvenile Court, there were copycat threats reported Wednesday at McIntosh, as text messages were spread among students warning them to leave school by lunchtime, officials said. Many parents checked their students out just to be safe, but school officials and police checked out the threats and found none of the information to be credible.

Police also conducted a search warrant in conjunction with the case looking for a weapon at a home but the search turned up empty. Police would not specify the location where the warrant was served.

To help students feel more secure, teachers manned the hallways of McIntosh between classes to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Three police officers also patrolled the interior of the school as others patrolled the exterior to enhance safety, said Police Chief James Murray.

The threats were posted on MySpace web pages, and after one of the girls' friends discovered the messages, she reported it to her grandmother who in turn reported the threats to police.

Officials urge students to report any potential threat even if they heard it second, third or fourth-hand by telling a parent, teacher or administrator.