By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune Published: July 12, 2012 Updated: July 12, 2012 – 7:04 PM

Jared Cano, a former Freedom High School student, made plans to blow up the school, said he wanted to kill more people than were lost at Columbine and hoped to hack two assistant principals with a machete.

Cano’s lawyer doesn’t dispute any of those facts.

Still, defense attorney Norman S. Canella Sr. is asking a judge to dismiss criminal charges against his now-18-year-old client.

Canella maintains the items assembled by Cano including a timer, pipes and chemicals could not have exploded or hurt anyone.

But Assistant State Attorney John Terry said it doesn’t matter under the law whether Cano’s bomb would have succeeded.

Cano told a high school student about his plans, and the student was concerned enough to go to police and become an informant, Terry said. Cano made a timer and compiled bomb ingredients and instructions.

“The Legislature wants to stop these people before they actually make these bombs,” Terry said during a hearing Thursday before Circuit Court Judge Kimberly Fernandez.

Fernandez reserved decision, saying she will issue a written opinion at a later date.

Cano, who had been expelled from the school, was arrested in August after authorities said they received a tip Cano wanted to bomb the school. Police searched his family’s apartment and said they found bomb-making material, marijuana plants and a “manifesto” containing minute-by-minute plans to kill two school officials and at least 30 students.

Read the original here: