Glendale teen arrested, accused of threats in Botkin case


Brent Whiting
The Arizona Republic
March 06, 2001 16:30:00


A former classmate of Sean Botkin, the teen accused of holding students at gunpoint, was arrested today after making threats against three witnesses in Botkin's upcoming trial, Glendale police said.


Jacob James Robinson, 14, himself one of Botkin's alleged victims, made the threats to the witnesses at Pioneer Elementary School, said Officer Matthew Brown, a Glendale police spokesman.

"He went up to three female eighth-grade students today and threatened to kill them and their families if they testified against Sean Botkin," Brown said.

The arrest came a day after a school rampage near San Diego in which two students were killed and 13 other people were wounded. It also comes six days before Botkin is set to stand trial in Maricopa County Superior Court on 57 counts of kidnapping and aggravated assault.

Botkin, 14, was arrested Oct. 24 after holding 32 Pioneer students and a teacher with a loaded gun before surrendering to authorities an hour later.

Police said that Robinson was among the last students released from the classroom. They said he told investigators he did not believe Botkin intended to harm anybody.

Robinson, an eighth grader, was taken into custody after Glendale investigators were called to the school.

Robinson was to be booked in a juvenile-detention facility on a charge of disrupting an educational institution and three counts of witness tampering, Brown said.

In addition, he was to be booked on another charge of making threats against a female teacher. Brown declined to elaborate, but said that charge is unrelated to the other threats.

Brown described Robinson as acquaintances, not friends, and said there is no evidence they have been in contact with each other since Botkin's arrest last year.

School officials will take "appropriate action" against Robinson after police have completed their investigation, said Matt Licardi, a spokesman for the Peoria Unified School District.