South Portland teen found not guilty of school shooting plot

Jul. 17—A 17-year-old South Portland student has been found not guilty of recruiting others in a plot to shoot up his high school.

Tristan Hamilton faced one count of solicitation of murder and one of arson in Cumberland County juvenile court after prosecutors said he had attempted to recruit students to shoot up the school sometime last year.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, Judge Peter Darvin found Hamilton not guilty of the solicitation charge, but adjudicated him on one count of arson. A hearing to decide a sentence on the arson charge will be held at the "earliest available date," according to court documents.

Hamilton will be allowed to address the public and the court at the future hearing, documents show. Hamilton's attorneys said Wednesday that the hearing has not been scheduled yet, but their client is "ready to have this over."

"We're not surprised to see that it was acquitted. The facts weren't there," Mark Peltier, one of Hamilton's attorneys, said in a phone interview.

In juvenile court, adjudications replace convictions. Adjudicated juvenile offenders can't be detained beyond their 21st birthday — no matter how serious the crime. Because of those limitations, prosecutors had tried to move the case to adult court, but Darvin denied those efforts and said it would stay in the juvenile system.

The two-day trial in juvenile court last month showcased testimony from South Portland High School students, a detective and new social media evidence. Authorities had accused Hamilton of glorifying the Columbine gunmen, throwing Molotov cocktails and burning LGBTQ pride flags.

He was arrested in April 2023 after he was reported for enlisting his classmates in the shooting plot. A regional SWAT team seized several high-powered rifles, Nazi flags, white supremacist memorabilia and ballistic military gear from his bedroom.

"He essentially hasn't had the opportunity to live the live of a normal teenage kid for a long time at this point," Hamilton's other defense attorney, Amber Miller, said in a phone interview. "He's ready to move on."

Peltier said the teen has been "heavily scrutinized" and couldn't go out in public without raising fear in people.

"Everything gets taken out of context, (he's) traumatized by the whole thing," Peltier said in a phone interview.

As for the judge's sentence, they said it's unlikely that Hamilton will be detained at Long Creek Youth Development Center, as he has been "successful under supervision for a long time."

The district attorney's office and the South Portland superintendent declined to comment on the ruling.

'CLEARLY RECKLESS'

The arson charge had been narrowed down to one specific incident shown in a June 2022 video obtained by prosecutors. The video shows Hamilton accidentally setting his arm on fire with a Molotov cocktail at Wainwright Field while wearing a ghillie suit, a type of camouflage gear often worn by hunters or military snipers.

The defense team argued at the trial that he did not commit arson because he only put himself in danger, but prosecutors said he also endangered the videographer by throwing a portion of the bottle toward them.

Darvin ultimately ordered that the use of Molotov cocktails is "clearly reckless and had the potential to cause great harm or damage" and a defendant can be guilty of arson when putting "any person" in danger, including themselves.

Darvin said in his ruling that when he does deliver the sentencing, he will "take into account the disproportionate nature of the offense."

Peltier said they are thankful for that.

'COMPLETE LACK OF EVIDENCE'

In his order Tuesday, Darvin wrote that while prosecutors presented substantial evidence for the solicitation charge, it focused too much on Hamilton's beliefs rather than showing real plans for a school shooting.

The judge said prosecutors tried to characterize alleged white supremacist, racist or homophobic beliefs as motivations for a shooting, but that the teen did not identify a specific target other than "the generalized reference to 'the school.' "

Prosecutors also showed evidence from Hamilton's social media accounts, including videos and photos of him posing in masks and bulletproof vests, and Snapchat conversations with a classmate about the Columbine shooting.

Although prosecutors were trying to prove that the defendant was "like the Columbine shooters," Darvin said their evidence doesn't support the idea that he would actually "engage in such heinous acts of planned violence."

Much debate during the second day of trial centered around whether he could actually be guilty of criminal solicitation of murder, an unusual charge. According to Maine law, three elements need to be met for a person to be guilty: They have the intent to cause a crime, they make or try to make someone commit a crime, and they believe the crime will probably occur.

Prosecutors argued that Hamilton tried to enlist two of his classmates to participate in the shooting, which they said was scheduled for the 2024-2025 school year.

Hamilton's former friend Logan Rall, 19, previously told the court that Hamilton asked him to be a shooter and to buy ammunition and other firearm and pipe bomb materials. He said he reported Hamilton because he was worried about the safety of his fellow students.

But Darvin wrote in his ruling that Rall was "easily influenced and vulnerable to the suggestions of his examiner" at those hearings and provided contradictory answers.

"Logan may have been well meaning and motivated by what he believed to be true in making his initial report or giving testimony, but this does not equate with being a credible witness whose testimony is sufficient to carry the weight of the evidence on a serious felony charge," Darvin wrote.

The judge said another witness, a 17-year-old who attorneys called Jane Doe, also didn't prove that Hamilton had the intent to shoot up the school because she didn't believe he was serious. Snapchat voice messages shared in court showed he did reference carrying out the shooting during the 2024-2025 school year, but Darvin said that evidence was incomplete because it failed to show context about that conversation or point to a specific date.

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