A student in Rivers, Man., says he is stunned the small community was the site of a high-profile arrest after police say a teenage boy was planning simultaneous school attacks with another youth in Nova Scotia.

"I was surprised. Didn't really expect it. It's a small town. You don't really think of things like this happening in such a nice community," Cole Lelond, a Grade 11 student at Rivers Collegiate, said.

"It definitely worries me, now that I know things like that could happen in such a small community."

Police in Bridgewater, N.S., said they were alerted by international police agency Interpol and the FBI about online communications between a 15-year-old girl in that town and a 14-year-old boy in Manitoba. The pair were communicating about their desires to mount attacks at their local schools, Park View Education Centre and Rivers Collegiate, police said.