A possible mass shooting plot at a Michigan graduation ceremony was thwarted, authorities said, and police are searching for one of the suspects who remains at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The apparent plot was revealed after authorities responded to a fight that broke out during the Arts and Technology Academy of Pontiac graduation, which was held Tuesday at a business in Pontiac, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A person approached our deputies and gave them information that a family member had told them that they had seen on Snapchat a threat to shoot up this graduation ceremony,” Bouchard said at a news conference Friday.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities kept investigating and recovered two loaded guns with high-capacity magazines from under cars in the parking lot, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Law enforcement “probably prevented a mass shooting,” the sheriff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One suspect, 19-year-old Deahveon Shamar-James Whaley, has been arrested, Bouchard said. Authorities are searching for a second suspect, 20-year-old Jamarion Jaryante Hardiman, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardiman and Whaley were not students at the K-12 charter school but were connected via “friends and relatives,” the sheriff said, and they appeared to have “ongoing disputes with individuals in the community.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardiman and Whaley “have a history of being involved with weapons and violence,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bouchard said he’s alarmed “how close it was, potentially, to being another mass shooting.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oakland County is home to Oxford High School, where teenager Ethan Crumbley carried out a mass shooting in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sheriff urged the public to share information about threats of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If you see something, say something,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this thwarted attack, “Someone saw that [Snapchat] post,” Bouchard said, but deputies “didn’t hear about it until after we had arrived on the scene” to respond to the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone who sees Hardiman should call 911, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n