ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — Documents released in the investigation into an attempted murder plot at Lake Brantley High School last week have shed additional light on the speed in which officials reacted after an anonymous tip exposed the plan.
Police said Isabelle Aurelia Valdez, who was initially identified by the tipster as a student named “Jimmy,” and Lois Lippert, both 15, were arrested on charges of premeditated attempted murder.
They said the tip came in around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 22, and reported that Valdez planned to kill another student. Officers said Valdez was already known to them from a previous investigation, which they did not detail further.
They said Valdez was initially contacted late Thursday and had her phone seized by Seminole County deputies.
The next morning, they said administrators pulled Valdez and her best friend, Lippert, out of class as soon as security notified them the girls were in the school building. They asked Valdez if she planned to hurt herself or anyone else. Her response was among the many redactions police made in their report.
Lippert’s statements were also heavily redacted, though she said Valdez contacted her.
The report noted the school’s assistant principal asked for Valdez’s backpack after she noticed Valdez did not take it to the office.
Police said they recovered a knife and a note from Valdez’s backpack when they searched it. Mentions of both the note and the knife were redacted in the report. The report mentioned Valdez also had a camera and a pair of work gloves in her bag.
Any possible motivation for the alleged murder plot was also redacted.
“It should be noted that Valdez’s statements and attitude were not consistent with those of an innocent person explaining the facts in this investigation,” Det. Luthrell Church wrote in his report.
The arrests have renewed concerns for Lake Brantley families, who were still reeling from an extended lockdown after a threat was made several weeks ago.
Mac Hardy, Director of Operations for the National Association of School Resource Officers, said the potential crime may not have been caught if the students planned to carry it out outside the school grounds.
“I know that there’s a lot of fear that goes around with kids going to school,” Hardy said. “Schools… for a lot of students, is the safest place they go during the week.”
While parents have put a new emphasis on adding metal detectors to the facility, Hardy said that was just one component in a comprehensive approach.
Metal detectors, he said, do not catch anything that comes into the school through other means and aren’t perfect, even though the technology is getting better.
What was important, he explained, was to create an environment that allows students to make tips – even anonymously, which is how the tip came in at Lake Brantley.
“Everybody’s on the same page, and everybody knows what they’re working with, and everybody knows where the problem areas lie, so we can keep an eye on it to make sure that we continue that safe learning environment,” he said.
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