New details emerge about a teenager's terrorist threat to attack an AISD school

AUSTIN, Texas – Court documents reveal more information about a teenager's plan to go on a shooting rampage at an elementary school.

Seventeen-year-old Giana Castillo is charged with terroristic threats. She is accused of planning an attack on Graham Elementary School, which she previously attended.

Yaremy Lopez, a parent at Graham Elementary, shared her reaction.

“I grew up in this school and I never expected something like this to happen in my childhood school,” she said. “I'm very unhappy about it, I don't feel safe.”

Authorities say an informant saw Castillo's Instagram post in which he talked about planning a shooting spree and idolizing previous shooters. Investigators traced the IP address.

The affidavit for her arrest shows posts of guns she wanted to buy and pictures on her phone saying she has “always felt some kind of hatred for humanity.”

The documents also revealed conversations with another person in which the procurement of the weapons and the timing of the attack were planned.

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Dr. Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center and Texas State University, emphasizes the importance of speaking up if you see or hear something suspicious.

“These acts of violence can be prevented because they are usually planned in advance. It doesn't just happen one day that someone wakes up and decides to do something like this. Usually, those affected tell others about their plans in advance,” she said.

Since 2019, every school district in Texas has been required to provide a school behavior threat assessment team.

“The idea is that we want to identify these concerning behaviors long before they become violent,” Martinez-Prather said.

She says there is no profile for attackers in schools.

“We can draw on case studies and research from previous years on preventing attacks in schools. Students' motivation was often anger at a classmate. The perpetrators in school or in general were discouraged or desperate and possibly even suicidal,” she said.

She praises the law enforcement authorities and the people who supported their quick action.

“In this situation, a terrible tragedy was prevented,” she said.

“Security measures here have also improved, so I feel a little safer, but what parent wants to know that their child's school is under threat,” Lopez said.

Since the threat, AISD police have increased patrols at Graham Elementary School.