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EXCLUSIVE: Arlington student: Warning of Vermont school shooting 'matter of lives at hand'

Poughkeepsie Journal

Angela McDevitt didn’t recognize the person she knew in the messages she received.

Her friend, Jack Sawyer, told her he planned “on shooting up” Fair Haven Union High School in Vermont, and had been preparing to do so for two years.

“I was very conflicted on what to do because this was not the Jack that I knew in person,” McDevitt said.

Angela McDevitt, 17, a student at Arlington High School, right, looks at text messages with her friends Rebecca Campos and Spencer Koonin, both 16. McDevitt is being credited with thwarting a possible mass school shooting. McDevitt, photographed Feb. 20, 2018, received text messages from Jack Sawyer, who she had met while both were residents in a Maine treatment center for youths with emotional problems. The text messages she received from Sawyer described his desire to conduct a mass shooting at his old high school in Vermont. McDevitt brought the texts to the attention of authorities, and Sawyer was arrested before he could carry out a shooting.

The 17-year-old Arlington High School junior decided to bring the Facebook messages to the attention of a school official. And because of it, officials in Dutchess County and Vermont are praising the LaGrange teenager, who previously chose not to be identified, for helping to prevent a mass shooting at the Rutland County school of about 400 students.

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Sawyer, an 18-year-old former Fair Haven student, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that include attempted murder.

In an exclusive interview with the Journal on Tuesday, McDevitt explained the two had met at Ironwood, a residential treatment center and private school in Maine. Both were battling behavioral disorders and depression.

Jack Sawyer, 18, of Poultney, appears in Vermont Superior Court in Rutland on Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, pleading not guilty to charges including attempted murder in connection with the threat of a mass shooting at Fair Haven Union High School.

There, in a rustic farm setting geared toward healing, life had revolved around chores, meals cooked over open fires, animals and the outdoors.

Now, the two have been thrust into the national debate over gun control and school shootings — Sawyer as he sits behind bars, and McDevitt as she pleads for stricter gun control and compassion for those suffering from mental health issues.

“He was just a very kind person when I knew him,” she said. “I was very sad. I was very conflicted but I knew that I had to (report Sawyer’s messages) because it was a matter of lives at hand. It wasn’t a matter of just hurting someone’s feelings.”

Check back on poughkeepsiejournal.com for an expanded account from McDevitt’s interview with the Journal.

John W. Barry: jobarry@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-437-4822, Twitter: @JohnBarryPoJo