15-year-old sentenced for ‘calculated, predatory’ Tri-City school shooting plot

The student who developed a detailed plan for a mass shooting at Kamiakin High in Kennewick last year received the maximum sentence allowed in juvenile court Monday. Following an emotional hearing, Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Shea-Brown ordered Mason Bently-Ray Ashby, now 15, to be jailed for about five more years, until he turns 21.

Because Ashby committed the crime of attempted first-degree murder when he was just 14, Washington state law does not allow him to be tried as an adult.

He also was found guilty by Shea-Brown of one count of threats to injure property and 11 counts of unlawful possession of a gun.

The Benton County sentence that will keep him locked up until he turns 21, rather than releasing him sooner, was only possible before Shea-Brown ruled that a sentence longer than the standard range was justified because of the potential danger Ashby posed to the community.

She said he was at high risk to reoffend and that the “horror” of his actions would not be forgotten by those impacted. Ashby was armed with one of his grandfather’s guns after figuring out the code to his gun safe and created maps detailing his planned mass shooting last September.

He targeted rooms at Kamiakin High, videotaped a “dress rehearsal” walk-through at the school and wrote a manifesto found after the planned shooting.

Read more: Tri-City Herald