Police in Corona, California, arrested two 15-year-old girls on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder over an alleged plan to carry out a shooting at Corona High School, the Corona Police Department said Tuesday.
The investigation began October 6 after the FBI alerted Corona police to threats made over social media, ABC7 reported. "A collaborative investigation led to the immediate arrest of a 15-year-old female Corona High School student," police said in a statement. Detectives later identified and arrested a second 15-year-old girl, who attends Norco High School.
Police said the two "spent several months researching school shootings and discussed how they could carry out a potential attack at Corona High School on an unspecified future date." Search warrants turned up that evidence, according to ABC7. "Communications showed the suspects discussed methods to obtain weapons but had not yet been able to do so. No weapons were located during the searches," the police statement said.
Both girls remain in custody on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, and the investigation continues with the FBI, police said. Police have not named the girls, who are minors.
"There is no greater priority than protecting our kids, and threats against our schools will be met with the full force of the FBI and our partners," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement, ABC News reported.
Corona High and Norco High are both part of the Corona-Norco Unified School District in Riverside County. In the 2024-25 school year, Corona High enrolled 2,307 students and Norco High 2,032, according to federal data.
Plots like this one are often caught because of what the plotters say. The U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center studied 67 plots to attack K-12 schools that were averted from 2006 to 2018. In 94% of them, the plotters shared their intentions in some way, including verbal statements, electronic messages, and online posts. Most of the 100 plotters in that study were male; five were female. The most common motive was a grievance with classmates. "Targeted school violence is preventable, if communities can identify warning signs and intervene," the Secret Service said when it released the study. The report found that students are often the ones best placed to notice, and that the reporting systems in averted cases usually included tip lines, online forms, apps, and text messaging.
Corona police asked anyone with information about the case to call Detective Edwards at 951-279-3656.
Sources
ABC News: 2 teenagers arrested for alleged plot targeting California high school, police say
ABC7 Los Angeles: 2 Riverside County teens arrested in alleged plot targeting Corona High School (October 21, 2026)
U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center: Averting Targeted School Violence (2021)
U.S. Secret Service: release on Averting Targeted School Violence (March 30, 2021)
Enrollment from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2024-25.
