By the time the police cruisers rolled up to the teenager’s home in Ohio one night in June, he and his alleged co-conspirators already had amassed guns, bullets and body armor.
He told officers he had never met the others in person. He did not appear to know their real names. They had converged online a few months earlier and, according to court affidavits, soon were developing plans for bloodshed. They arranged car pools to the nation’s capital. They mapped where to launch drones laden with explosives and where to station snipers.
Then the teenager’s mother overheard him on the phone.
