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A Helena man who admitted to possessing homemade bombs who allegedly had a desire to commit a “Columbine-style attack” on a Helena High School was sentenced Monday to more than seven years in prison with three years supervised release.
An informant told the Helena Police Department in May 2022 that Logan Sea Pallister, 25, discussed a desire to commit a Columbine-style attack at the high school and planned to use pipe bombs in addition to firearms, according to the Montana U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting in 1999 in Columbine, Colorado, where 15 people died, including the two gunmen.
Pallister pled guilty in January to possession of unregistered destructive devices, and to possession of an unregistered silencer. He was sentenced in the U.S. District Court of Montana in Helena.
Court documents said Pallister has an “unnatural and unhealthy fascination with violence,” especially with school shooters. Pallister would regularly harass his co-workers at a local fast-food restaurant and would discuss an “ongoing fantasy to commit a Columbine-style mass shooting at a high school,” the sentencing memo read.
Pallister bought clothing and weapons to match what was worn by Columbine attackers, buying a black trench coat and the same type of duffle bag used by the shooters. He would talk about how he would plant bombs around the school to “maximize the effect of the attack,” and claimed to be stockpiling weapons.
In May of 2022 Pallister brought a female coworker to his car outside the fast-food restaurant to “show her something,” and then showed her a homemade pipe bomb that had been hidden in a case in the car floorboard. She later told police he threatened to kill her if she told anyone what she saw, which Pallister denies, but she told police shortly after, according to to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Police officers arrested Pallister on May 31, 2022, at about 4 a.m., as he was walking towards his car from where he lived, wearing a black trench coat and carrying a bag.
Officers found eight loaded concealed firearms on him including semi-automatic pistols and AR-style rifles equipped with high capacity magazines, the news release said.
After searching his car, law enforcement found nine more firearms, rounds of ammunition, loaded magazines, firearm accessories, an oil filter that appeared to have been modified to function as a homemade silencer and a green ammunition can that contained four suspected homemade pipe bombs, according to prosecutors. A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives expert later confirmed the powder in the suspected pipe bombs was explosive.
In his home, officers found more firearms and ammunition, firearm components, money order documents, receipts and online orders related to chemicals, suspected chemical precursors for making explosives and a suspected homemade explosive mixture known as flash powder, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The government said the suppressor and destructive devices weren’t registered and having them broke federal firearms laws.
The government said in their sentencing memo it was “hard to conclude Pallister’s threats were ‘harmless.’”
“What sets him apart is his demonstrated ability to follow through on his threat,” the memo said. “More than just idle chatter, Pallister meticulously set about stockpiling an arsenal to carry out his plan: dozens of semi-automatic firearms and components designed to produce maximum lethality, body armor, pipe bombs, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and clothing that mirrored clothing worn by the Columbine attackers — all the materials needed to carry out the object of his deranged fantasy.”
The government said it could not say definitively Pallister was on his way to carry out an attack the morning of his arrest, with the delivery of some pipe bomb parts coming in days after his arrest possibly indicating he was still preparing. But it was clear he was working meticulously towards taking action.
“In short, Pallister had clearly set in motion a chain of events that likely would have ended in tragedy,” the government said.
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