Derek Shrout, 17, was released Monday afternoon from Russell County Jail on a $75,000 bond after he was arrested for allegedly planning to use homemade explosives in a terrorist attack on fellow students at Russell County High School in Seale, Ala. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said Sunday a search of Shrout’s home Friday found about a couple dozen small tobacco cans and two large cans, all with holes drilled in them and containing pellets. A teacher found the journal, determined it belonged to Shrout and gave it to an administrator who got it to School Resource Officer Tommy Morrison, one of Taylor’s deputies. He recognized the potential for danger, and Shrout was brought in for questioning, Taylor said. Taylor said Shrout claimed the writing in the journal to be fictitious, but Shrout’s parents, whom Taylor called “very cooperative,” allowed a search of the house and the bomb materials were located.

JROTC 1st Sgt. David White recalled that Shrout was often seen giving Nazi salutes while at school. “In the hallway, at breakfast, at the lunch tables, after school where we have our bus parking lot, he’d have his big old group of friends and they’d go around doing the whole white power crazy stuff,” White said. “Why would you want to go to a school and blow it up? You know you’re going to hit somebody else; you’re not just going to, in particular, hit one person. You’re going to injure more than one.” ABC News reported on Monday that Shrout’s targets included five African-American students, one student who he believed was gay and one African-American teacher.

An Alabama teenaged white supremacist was arrested yesterday after a teacher found his journal in which he outlined a plan to murder black and gay fellow students.

Labels: Alabama, education, white supremacists