Pullman family hailed as heroes

Michigan authorities are hailing a Pullman family as heroes after they led police to a disturbed teenager who’d amassed an arsenal of weapons for a possible attack on a Detroit-area high school with 2,000 students.

“We could have had a potential Columbine situation on our hands, honestly,” said Officer Tom Wixson of the Clinton Township Police Department. “They are definitely heroes.”

The tip that led a team of officers to a cache of weapons – including an AK-47 assault rifle, explosives and instructions for making bombs – came from Cpl. George McGinty of the Washington State University Police Department.

The officer’s 16-year-old daughter is credited with helping police prevent a 17-year-old from possibly unleashing acts of violence on his fellow students at Chippewa Valley High School. McGinty said the family has decided not to release his daughter’s name to reporters, in the interest of privacy.

McGinty’s daughter met Andrew Osantowski in a music chat room on the Internet. Within a few weeks, he began sending instant messages that were disturbing. As Osantowski’s messages became increasingly violent, McGinty said his daughter started fearing that he was going to hurt someone.

She printed out logs of her recent online discussion with Osantowski and showed them to her parents.

“She didn’t want to wake up the next day and find out something horrible had happened and that she had information that could have prevented it,” McGinty said.

McGinty looked over the messages and was alarmed. “There was a lot of stuff about killing and the joy of killing,” he said.

Additionally, the boy hinted that he wouldn’t be alive much longer and expressed a desire for headlines and notoriety.

As an officer for WSU, McGinty’s duties include investigating Internet crime. He took the information to work, and after doing some research, told a colleague to warn the Clinton Township Police Department that they might have a violent youth on their hands.

The following morning, officers detained Osantowski at Chippewa Valley High School and then searched his home.

Wixson, who helped carry out the search, said the combination of weapons, explosives and Nazi flags left little doubt that the boy was entertaining plans to carry out mass destruction.

“It’s unbelievable that a 17-year-old kid would have all that,” Wixson said. “If (the McGintys) wouldn’t have said anything we would have potentially had a mess. It was just a matter of time.”

Sgt. Dan Dohring of the Clinton Township Police Department said that in addition to the threat to students, Osantowski had threatened a school-liaison officer, who helped arrest him on an earlier charge of stealing golf carts. He commends McGinty’s daughter for making a tough decision as a teenager, and her parents for passing that information along.

“They took what they thought was a credible threat and did the right thing with it and possibly saved a lot of lives,” Dohring said.

The stolen items link him to the June burglary of a gun shop, from which two shotguns and an AK-47 were stolen, police said.

Osantowski has pleaded not guilty to charges of threatening terrorism, concealing stolen firearms, breaking and entering a gun shop and threatening to kill a witness, in addition to other charges. He was being held on $1 million bond.

His father, Marvin Osantowski, 52, was also taken into custody, charged with concealing stolen firearms. A judge set a $500,000 bond.

Michigan police also searched the house of another man, who they say provided Andrew Osantowski with bomb-making instructions. He later pleaded not guilty to possessing explosives and manufacturing marijuana, as well as other charges. Bond was set at $100,000.

The McGinty family is dealing with instant notoriety, including calls from media across the country. Perhaps the most telling call came from the parent of a Chippewa Valley High School student who wanted to fly the family to Michigan so the community could thank them. The family is undecided about whether to take the trip.

McGinty said he’s proud that his daughter made a difficult choice that may have saved a community from unspeakable grief. His part, he believes, was all in a day’s work.

“It’s kind of rare in our job that we get to actually prevent things,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to stop things before they happen.”