Taiwanese Exchange Student Arrested For Threatening to Shoot Up Local High School

Taiwanese Exchange Student Arrested For Threatening to Shoot Up Local High SchoolTaiwanese Exchange Student Arrested For Threatening to Shoot Up Local High School
Authorities have arrested an 18-year-old foreign exchange student from Taiwan after reportedly threatening to shoot up his classmates at a local high school in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
An Tso Sun, who is in the United States on a five-year student visa, was allegedly building an arsenal for his alleged planned attack against Bonner Prendergast Catholic High School. 
Police were alerted after he reportedly told a friend not to come to school on May 1 because he was going to shoot up the school before saying he was just kidding.
Sun was subjected to a mental health evaluation after he was apprehended by local police on Tuesday and is now being held at Delaware County Prison on $100,000 bail, facing a first-degree misdemeanor terroristic threat charge.
Police are currently determining if Sun was indeed planning an attack in light of recent discoveries after his arrest. 
Sun allegedly brought in a high caliber bullet to school back in February and was found to have looked into the process of purchasing an AK-47 and AR-15 online via an iPad in the school.
He also featured himself in a video with a flamethrower while wearing a mask, according to the Washington Post.
Authorities reportedly found the following items inside the boy’s home: a military-style ballistic vest, a web gear backpack with pouches to hold ammo clips, a type of cold weather gear, a high-powered crossbow with scope and light and seven arrows, a loading dock — or “speed loader” — meant for use in AK-47s and AR-15s, a wooden box made for a homemade gun, 20 live rounds of 9 mm ammunition, a military ski mask, ear protectors and a garrote which Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood referred to as “a strangling device.”
“When you’re able to amass these types of items and you’re not even a citizen of the United States … something’s wrong somewhere,” Chitwood said in a press statement. “Someone’s not watching.”
Upon questioning, Sun claimed that the threat he made against the school was just a joke.
In a tweet, Upper Darby police wrote, “Kudos to the person who stepped forward and helped to avert a tragedy.”
Defense attorney Enrique Latoison told ABC News that his client “had no intention or plans” to commit a school shooting, noting that many of the items found were what he wore to school for a Halloween costume contest.
“I don’t believe what he said rises to the crime of terroristic threatening,” Latoison said. “He said, ‘Just kidding.’ I understand the heightened sensitivity, but he is not from here, he didn’t possess the same social skills of what it is to grow up in the post-Columbine generation. … You and I understand that it’s not a funny joke, but maybe he doesn’t understand that.”
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