By Jess Bidgood @ NYTimes.com, May 4

FAIR HAVEN, Vt. — When people who knew Jack Sawyer saw something, they said something.

A mother told the police that Mr. Sawyer, who had seemed troubled in the past, had just bought a gun. A friend of the young man also contacted the police: He was talking admiringly of the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., the friend warned, and hinting at sinister plans of his own.

The police soon detained Mr. Sawyer, 18, a former student at Fair Haven Union High School. They said they had found a journal in his car that laid out disturbing plans for a shooting at the high school. “I’m aiming to kill as many as I can,” the journal read. The school resource officer, the journal went on, might have to be shot “point blank” in the head.

Mr. Sawyer was charged with aggravated assault, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder — all felonies — and held without bail [....] last month, a ruling by the Vermont Supreme Court cast doubt on the viability of the charges against Mr. Sawyer. The most serious charges were soon dropped, leaving only misdemeanors, and he was released on bail last week.

Residents were outraged — fearful for their safety and angry at a legal system that seemed not to take into account the realities of school shootings [....]