Prosecutors have dropped a criminal charge against a Cape Cod teen who they previously accused of planning a shooting at a Falmouth school, the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
Falmouth resident Ian Fotheringham, 18, pleaded not guilty to one count of threatening to use a deadly weapon in a public building during his arraignment in Barnstable District Court last week.
The charge against Fotheringham was dropped because prosecutors “learned of a discrepancy which made further prosecution in the District Court no longer available,” the district attorney’s office wrote in a press release. The discrepancy was discovered over the course of the investigation into the teen, which is ongoing.
Read more: Cape Cod teen was planning shooting at Falmouth school, prosecutors say
Falmouth police began investigating Fotheringham in August after being informed that he’d indicated a desire to “shoot up a school” and was refurbishing guns in his bedroom, the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office said previously. With Fotheringham’s consent, Falmouth police searched his home, but did not find any illegal firearms.
Then, in early September, Falmouth School District safety monitors reported a suspicious male walking in the woods behind a school to Falmouth police, the district attorney’s office said. The school was Teaticket Elementary School, WBZ-TV reported previously.
“Based on their interaction with the male, school safety monitors were very concerned that this male was ‘casing’ the school,” the district attorney’s office wrote.
Falmouth police soon identified the male as Fotheringham, the district attorney’s office said. But Fotheringham’s attorney, Krysten Condon, disputed that the description of the suspicious male matched her client, WBZ-TV reported.
Investigators soon discovered photos of the deadly Columbine High School shooting from 1999 on Fotheringham’s phone, the district attorney’s office said. Falmouth police then searched his home a second time and found a large 3D printer capable of producing a firearm.
Read more: Cape Cod teen who prosecutors say planned school shooting released on bail
Police reports indicate that Fotheringham previously exhibited concerning, sometimes violent, behavior late last year, The Cape Cod Times reported previously.
But in a previous statement to WBZ-TV, Condon argued that the case against her client was “based on speculation and conjecture.” She also said her client has mental health issues.
Despite this, the court previously accepted an evaluating doctor’s recommendation that he be deemed competent to stand trial — a move which both the defense and prosecutors supported, according to court records.
Following a dangerousness hearing last week, Fotheringham was released on bail with conditions including that he remain on house arrest, not possess any weapons, wear a GPS location monitor and undergo mental health treatment, court records show.
A group of concerned Falmouth mothers attended the hearing, hoping to hear the judge rule against granting Fotheringham bail, WBZ-TV reported. In turn, the town’s superintendent promised to have police details stationed at all elementary schools through at least the end of this week.