Teen Jailed for Plotting a Copycat of the Columbine Massacre is now Running for MAYOR of a Utah City
Photo Credit: APA Utah teenager arrested last year in a Columbine-inspired plot to blow up his high school will find out Tuesday if voters in the small city of Roy will take his run for mayor seriously.
Joshua Kyler Hoggan, 18, says he recognizes what he did was wrong but insists that he never had any explosives or intent to bomb the school in early 2012 when he and an older classmate were arrested. He says his six months in juvenile detention helped him deal with personal issues that plagued him then and says that he’s rehabilitated and ready to lead the city of about 37,000 people north of Salt Lake City.
‘People should trust me because I have proven one thing: That I am human,’ Hoggan said in an email to The Associated Press. ‘I have made mistakes, just like the rest of us. We’ve all made mistakes in our pasts, and I am no exception.’
He faces off in Tuesday’s primary against the current mayor, Joe Ritchie, and Councilman Willard Cragun. Most consider Hoggan a long shot to get through the nonpartisan primary, in which voters will choose two of the three to advance to the general election. Ritchie has been mayor for eight years and Cragun a councilman for six years.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
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