Pick a Gun... Any gun....
Debate and DiscussionDiscuss Pick a Gun... Any gun.... in the Discussions forums; well, seems like a school killing spree arived just in time for spring...
Only this time, there not sure why
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:10 a.m. ET March ...
well, seems like a school killing spree arived just in time for spring...
Only this time, there not sure why
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:10 a.m. ET March 22, 2005BEMIDJI, Minn. - A high school student went on a shooting rampage on an Indian reservation Monday, killing his grandparents at their home and then seven people at his school, grinning and waving as he fired, authorities and witnesses said. The suspect apparently killed himself after exchanging gunfire with police.
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It was the nation’s worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre in 1999 that killed 13 people.
One student said her classmates pleaded with the gunman to stop shooting.
“You could hear a girl saying, ’No, Jeff, quit, quit. Leave me alone. What are you doing?” student Sondra Hegstrom told The Pioneer of Bemidji, using the name of the suspected shooter.
Before the shootings at Red Lake High School, the suspect’s grandparents were shot in their home and died later. There was no immediate indication of the gunman’s motive.
In addition to the shooter, the death toll at the school included five students, a teacher and a security guard, FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said in Minneapolis. Among the dead was Neva Rogers, 62, a teacher at the school for five or six years, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Fourteen to 15 other students were injured, McCabe said. Some were being cared for in Bemidji, about 20 miles south of Red Lake. Authorities closed roads to the reservation in far northern Minnesota while they investigated the shootings.
Hegstrom described the shooter grinning and waving at a student his gun was pointed at, then swiveling to shoot someone else. “I looked him in the eye and ran in the room, and that’s when I hid,” she told The Pioneer.
‘Walked down the hallway shooting’
McCabe declined to talk about a possible connection between the suspect and the couple killed at the home, but Red Lake Fire Director Roman Stately said they were the grandparents of the gunman. He identified the shooter’s grandfather as Daryl Lussier, a longtime officer with the Red Lake Police Department, and said Lussier’s guns may have been used in the shootings.
Stately said the shooter had two handguns and a shotgun.
“After he shot a security guard, he walked down the hallway shooting and went into a classroom where he shot a teacher and more students,” Stately told Minneapolis television station KARE.
Students and a teacher, Diane Schwanz, said the gunman tried to break down a door to get into her classroom.
“I just got on the floor and called the cops,” Schwanz told the Pioneer. “I was still just half-believing it.”
Ashley Morrison, another student, had taken refuge in Schwanz’s classroom. With the shooter banging on the door, she dialed her mother on her cell phone. Her mother, Wendy Morrison, said she could hear gunshots on the line.
“’Mom, he’s trying to get in here and I’m scared,”’ Ashley Morrison told her mother, according to the newspaper.
RECENT U.S. SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
Sept. 24, 2003: Two students — Aaron Rollins, 17, and Seth Bartell, 14 — were fatally shot at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minn. Fellow student John Jason McLaughlin, 15 at the time of the shooting, awaits trial.
March 5, 2001: Charles “Andy” Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif. Williams was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
May 26, 2000: 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill killed his English teacher, Barry Grunow, on last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla. He was convicted of second-degree murder, is serving a 28-year sentence
Feb. 29, 2000: Six-year-old boy shot and killed 6-year-old classmate at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Mich. Because of his age, the boy was not charged.
Apr. 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
All of the dead students were found in one room. One of them was a boy believed to be the shooter, McCabe said. He said it was too early to speculate on a motive.
Martha Thunder’s 15-year-old son, Cody, was being treated for a gunshot wound to the hip.
“He heard gunshots and the teacher said ’No, that’s the janitor’s doing something,’ and the next thing he knew, the kid walked in there and pointed the gun right at him,” Thunder said, standing outside the hospital in Bemidji.
Police officers were posted at the hospital Monday night to discourage reporters from entering. When a reporter approached three men walking across a hospital parking lot, one broke down in tears, and the others said they had no comment.
‘Darkest hour' for tribe
The school was evacuated after the shootings and locked down for the investigation, McCabe said.
“It will probably take us throughout the night to really put the whole picture together,” he said.
Floyd Jourdain Jr., chairman of the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, called it “without a doubt the darkest hour” in the group’s history. “There has been a considerable amount of lives lost, and we still don’t know the total of that,” Jourdain said.
It was the nation’s worst school shooting since two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves on April 20, 1999.
The rampage in Red Lake was the second fatal school shooting in Minnesota in 18 months. Two students were killed at Rocori High School in Cold Spring in September 2003. Student John Jason McLaughlin, who was 15 at the time, awaits trial in the case.
Red Lake High School, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, has about 300 students, according to its Web site.
The reservation is about 240 miles north of the Twin Cities. It is home to the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, one of the poorest in the state. According to the 2000 census, 5,162 people lived on the reservation, and all but 91 were Indians.
Tragic, but no doubt somebody will be there to place the blame somewhere, people like a scapegoat when thier kids go mental. They can't comprehend the fact he was proabably psycho due to his upbringing. Point the finger anywhere except the parents - that seems to be the way.
RED LAKE, Minn. - Authorities were trying to determine Tuesday what caused a teenager to gun down his grandfather, put on the man's police-issue belt and bulletproof vest, and drive his marked squad car to a high school, where he began shooting his classmates at will.
Jeff Weise, whom authorities said was 16 or 17, killed nine people and wounded seven Monday before trading gunfire with a police officer and apparently shooting himself. His motive still wasn't clear Tuesday, but the FBI (news - web sites) said the shootings appeared to have been planned in advance.
It was the nation's worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre in April 1999 that ended with the deaths of 12 students, a teacher and the two teen gunmen.
The killings on this northern Minnesota Indian reservation began at the home of Weise's grandfather, Daryl Lussier, 58, who was shot to death with a .22-caliber gun, according to Michael Tabman, the FBI's special agent in charge for Minneapolis. Also killed was Tabman's companion, Michelle Sigana.
Lussier had worked as a tribal police officer for decades. Weise then drove the older man's squad car to the school, where he gunned down security guard Derrick Brun at the door and spent about 10 minutes inside, targeting people at random.
Hearing the shots, students and adults barricaded themselves into offices and classrooms and crouched under desks, authorities said. Five students were shot to death and two 15-year-olds remained in critical condition at a Fargo, N.D., hospital with gunshot wounds to the face.
"Right now we are in utter disbelief and shock," said Floyd Jourdain Jr., chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa.
Authorities were investigating whether Weise, who dressed in black and wrote stories about zombies, may have posted messages on a neo-Nazi Web site expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Using the handle "Todesengel" — German for "Angel of Death" — the writer identified himself as Jeff Weise of the Red Lake Reservation. In April 2004, he referenced being accused of "a threat on the school I attend," though it says he was later cleared.
Tabman said Tuesday he couldn't confirm whether Weise was the person who made the postings.
You encounter a lot of hostility when you claim to be a National Socialist, but because of my size and appearance people don’t give me as much trouble as they would if I looked weak. I already had a fist fight with a communist not to long ago over me being what I am (I also won), but it was worth it. I don’t try to hide what I am from anyone, if they’re going to start something over it then fine, I’m not backing down; Nor am I hiding. I try not to be aggressive in most situations, I’ll use force if I have to, but I’m not about to go out and pick a fight. I’m mostly defensive, I’ll defend myself if someone tries something but other than that I’m a peaceful person.
But the school threat passed and I was cleared as a suspect, I’m glad for that. I don’t much care for jail, I’ve never been there and I don’t plan on it.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so.
It was the nation’s worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre in 1999 that killed 13 people.
I'm sorry.. I found it particularly funny that it was a "massacre." Now.. When Mao Tse Dong was leader of China and killed the college students.. that was a massacre.. 13 people is not. (This is all my opinion about the words the writer chose.)
Now.. About this school shooting thing, it's the 2nd one in a ten year span. I don't think it's any form of media's fault, it's probably just teen angst at it's prime. I saw a flash video that this kid made though. The parents could have at least noticed something was up when/if they saw it. It had some figure holding a gun and shooting random animals/people then turned the gun on it's self and shot away.
(I really have nothing to post about.. I just thought that massacre thing was amusing.)
"Be who you are and say what you want, because those who mind
don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - The Great Seuss
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