Notes on Shooting People, Combat Found in SE Minnesota College Threats Case

Northfield, MN (KROC-AM News)- A Vermont man enrolled as a student at a southeast Minnesota college is facing three felony charges stemming from an arrest in a threats case last week. 

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Charges filed in Rice County Court Monday indicate a custodian found two empty packages for high capacity gun magazines in a garbage can outside of a St. Olaf College dorm on April 5. The packages were addressed  to an off-campus residence. 

The criminal complaint says St. Olaf Public safety searched the dorm room of the package's recipient, identified as 20-year-old Waylon Kurts. The charges say officials found a host of items including firearm magazines, two knives, a tactical vest and notebook containing St. Olaf Public Safety radio frequencies, a map of the campus’s recreation facility and a plan to steal ammunition from Walmart. 

Kurts was suspended and banned from campus following a search of his room before being arrested outside of a business in Edina on April 6. Law enforcement then seized Kurts’s vehicle on the day of his arrest as well as a cell phone Kurts had on him, the complaint says. 

The charges say the phone had text messages between Kurts and another person discussing handled radios and listening to various frequencies, milling and drilling parts to build rifles, shipping items to different locations so that packages would not raise suspicions among campus safety officials and buying handguns from unlicensed sellers.

The complaint says investigators also found a picture on the phone that depicted a box full of rifle magazines sitting on a bench on the St. Olaf campus with Kurts writing a caption that said “Kids’ve got no idea whats in here, haha.”

Investigators found a small notebook in Kurts’s vehicle that detailed notes on gun combat and how to shoot people with a handgun, according to the complaint. Kurts was arranged on charges of conspiracy to commit second-degree assault, conspiracy to commit threats of violence, terroristic threats and a misdemeanor count for conspiracy to commit theft in Rice County Court on Monday. 

The judge in the case set his conditional bail at $100,000. Rice County jail records indicate Kurts remains in custody. His next court appearance is set for April 21.