*** is wrong with the world, another school shooting

[FB]

10 dead, happened about 1.5 hours from where i go to school. shooting was in Red Lake, MN
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5305359.html

BEMIDJI, Minn. (AP) - The FBI said Monday night that two more students died in a shooting spree on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, bringing the number of dead to 10 in an attack apparently carried out by a high school student. The shooter was among the dead. "It is with much sadness that we are now releasing the official confirmed deaths at 10," FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said.

McCabe had no other details on the deaths, including whether the students may have died at a hospital. Fourteen to 15 students were earlier reported injured, two critically. A Fargo hospital where two victims were being treated had called in extra surgeons. function
Students and teachers said a student carried out the attack Monday afternoon at the high school. The death toll included the shooter's grandparents, a longtime Red Lake Police Department officer, and his wife, killed earlier at their home. The suspected gunman was found shot to death at the high school after the attack; it wasn't immediately clear how he was killed.

It was the nation's worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre in 1999.

Eight people died in the mid-afternoon shooting at Red Lake High School in far northern Minnesota, including six students. Also killed were a teacher and a security guard, FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said at a news conference in Minneapolis.

He 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 shooter. Stately 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.

All of the dead students were found in one room. One of them was a boy believed to be the shooter, McCabe said. He would not comment on reports that the boy shot himself and said it was too early to speculate on a motive.

The school was evacuated after the shootings and locked down for investigation, McCabe said.

"It will probably take us throughout the night to really put the whole picture together," he said.

Stately, the fire chief, told KARE-TV that 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 said.

Students gave a terrifying account of the attack.

"You could hear a girl saying, 'No, Jeff, quit, quit. Leave me alone. What are you doing?" said one student, Sondra Hegstrom, using the name of the suspected shooter.

In an interview with The Pioneer of Bemidji, Hegstrom described the gunman grinning and waving at a student his gun was pointed at, then swiveling the gun to shoot someone else.

"I looked him in the eye and ran in the room, and that's when I hid," Hegstrom said.

Ashley Morrison, another student, took refuge in a 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.

A teacher in that room, Diane Schwanz, said, "I just got down on the floor and (said), 'Kids, down on the ground, under the benches!'" She said she called police on her cell phone.

The Red Lake Independent School District is near the tribal headquarters of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. Students were evacuated to a drug rehabilitation building that is part of the nearby tribal complex

"You read about it in the papers," Sondra Hegstrom said. "It happens at other places, but not at our school. I thought our school was safe."

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.

It was the second major school shooting in Minnesota in recent years. In September 2003, two students were shot at Rocori High School in central Minnesota.

Aaron Rollins, 17, and Seth Bartell, 14, both died from their wounds _ Rollins that day and Bartell 16 days later. Fellow student John Jason McLaughlin, 15 at the time of the shootings, 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 Band of Chippewa Indians.

shooter started the morning by shooting his grandparents, his grandfather was a long time police officer in red lake.

[ronbo 613]

We just had a guy beat his mother and father to death, beat his brother into "grave" condition, plus he beat the two family dogs to death.
Nothing you can do except do the right thing yourself. There's 400 million people in America, some are going to be wackos, just a numbers game...........

[FB]

fixed first post

[count minaba]

Hey Brandon... I saw this on the Network News today and knew it was near you!
I have no words :sad:

[sammy2066]

very sad indeed ... :sad:

[FB]

Witnesses said Jeff Weise grinned and waved to others as he fired inside Red Lake High School, home to about 300 students on the Red Lake Indian Reservation 150 miles northeast of Fargo-Moorhead.

Student Sondra Hegstrom said she was in the room next door to most of the shootings.

"You could hear a girl saying, 'No, Jeff. Quit! Quit! Leave me alone. Why are you doing this?' Boom, boom, boom, and then no more screaming," Hegstrom said.

She said she saw the teen carrying a gun before he opened fire, aiming at one student, then smiling and waving before turning to shoot another.


Reggie Graves
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"I looked him in the eye and ran in a room, and that's when I hid," Hegstrom said.

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 during a Minneapolis press conference.

Before the school shootings, the suspect's grandparents were shot in their home and later died.

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 gunman's grandparents.

Stately said the man who died at the home was Daryl "Dash" Lussier, a 30-year officer with the Red Lake Police Department. The suspect carried two handguns and a shotgun, and Stately said they may have belonged to Lussier.

Authorities said the suspect apparently killed himself after exchanging gunfire with police.

No motive for the shootings was known Monday night.

Authorities closed roads into the reservation while they investigated.

Officials with the Red Lake Band of Chippewa said late Monday night they feared retribution against the gunman's family.

Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr. said the 10,000 enrolled members of the tribe - 4,700 of which live on the reservation and about 1,000 in the city - are close-knit.

"We know one another. We live and play and work together," he said. "Something like this is just beyond the magnitude of anything we have ever seen in the history of our tribe."

McCabe said Monday night that names of victims would not be immediately released.

Most of the injured were flown to hospitals in Fargo or Bemidji, 30 miles straight south of Red Lake.

Fargo's MeritCare Hospital dispatched a plane and helicopter to the scene and called in extra surgeons.

McCabe provided no details about the sequence of the shooting, but said most of the dead at the school were found in one room.

According to witnesses, the suspect arrived at the school about 2 p.m.

He began his spree by first shooting the security officer at the school door. He then walked through the school to a classroom, where all the other school shootings took place.

Teacher Diane Schwanz was in the school's Culture Room with her class when she heard the shooting.

"I got on the floor and said, 'Kids, down on the ground, under the benches,' and I called the cops," she said.

Student Ashley Morrison was in the Culture Room when the gunshots started.

At first, Morrison said she thought something had fallen over to make the loud sound. Then, she said, the suspect came to the door of the Culture Room.

"He started banging on our door," Morrison said.

Wendy Johnson, Ashley's mother, said that's about the time she received a phone call from her daughter.

"She was hiding and he was shooting the door she was in, trying to get in," Johnson said, adding she remembers Ashley saying, "Mom, he's trying to get in here and I'm scared."

Hegstrom said teacher Keith Lussier came into their room and told them to run.

Officers began searching the building and students were directed to walk to the Drug Rehabilitation Center about a block away, where school buses picked them up.

By then, groups of students, teachers and parents were trying to comfort each other.

Johnson left work when she received her daughter's cell phone call.

"Seeing the kids running out, crying, like Littleton," said Johnson, referring to Columbine, the worst school shooting that left 12 students and a teacher dead and 23 others injured before the two shooters killed themselves.

Monday's shooting was the second major school shooting in Minnesota in recent years. In September 2003, two students were shot to death at Rocori High School in central Minnesota.

"We're just traumatized," said Robin Isham, who left work at the Early Childhood Center after hearing word of the rampage. "I had four children in that building. I found them all."

Hegstrom said, "You read about it happening other places, but not at our school. I thought our school was safe."

The Associated Press and Forum reporters Dave Forster and Terri Finneman contributed to this report


Miron is editor of The Pioneer of Bemidji,

a Forum Communications Co. newspaper

update, there is supposed to be a few news conferences today, but this happend on an indian reservation, so we not hear the whole story.

[mrcooper]

I don't understand any of this either. Who are these kids?? Not literally, but where do they come from. It really makes you wonder if it's the parents fault or the kids themselves that are messed up. Maybe a combination of the two? Who knows. That's just a sad, sad story......and that's why I carry a handgun.

[Underwater Mike]

Problem is, in this case it would've been difficult to carry, concealed or open, because the incident occurred on school property. Unless MN has some very lenient carry laws, which I doubt, you would've been out of luck.

[Gbud]

But do you think they could get a jury to convict you if you did have a carry gun and used it to save some kids? I doubt it.

The thing is its a very small percentage that are mentaly unstable. Then a percentage of those that have bad parents. A bad combination. How old was this guy? I did not hear if he was a student there or not.

This is of course very sad news. I can not even begin to understand how the parents of those children feal.

.....

Now on a completely numbers side of this. I believe that these types of incidents are actully less than before. Does anyone recall the 80's? As I recall a couple of these is what set off our assault rifle bans.

[FB]

from the press conference a little bit ago.
shot grandfather, took 2 pistols and a shotgun, stole squad car.
drove to school, confronted by security guard at metal detectors, shot guard, proceded on.

[REVAN_abx]

I hate to see this happen anywhere but Minnesota is my home state.(Born there don'tcha know) Tears your heart out. No, Minnesota does not have lax gun laws, I don't believe that they even have a concealed permit law. Only for law enforcement or if you know somebody that can get it OK'd. That's another part of the problem in my book.

[TQ]

Some additional light shed on Jeff Weise from http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...443462,00.html

Begin:

A neo-nazi 'angel of death'

Sarah Left uncovers a series of website posts apparently linking Jeff Weise to extreme rightwing politics

Tuesday March 22, 2005

Jeff Weise, the 17-year-old named in newspaper reports as the gunman in the Red Lake school shooting, may have been investigated last year in connection with a shooting threat to the school, according to posts made on a Nazi website.
Over a five-month period between March and August 2004, someone identifying himself as Weise posted numerous messages on a talkboard hosted by Nazi.org, the website of the Libertarian National Socialist Green party. The party promotes a Nazi philosophy of racial purity.


Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In March 2004, a chatroom participant tagged Todesengel ("angel of death") began a thread titled "Native American Nationalist?" and introduced himself as "Jeff Weise, a Native American from the Red Lake 'Indian' reservation in Minnesota". Todesengel expressed interest in joining the party and said he had done a great deal of research on Hitler, a man he much admired. Later in the thread, Todesengel changed his tag to NativeNazi.
"When I was growing up, I was taught (like others) that Nazi's were (are) evil and that Hitler was a very evil man, ect," wrote Todesengel, in a quote not corrected for spelling and grammar. "Of course, not for a second did I believe this. Upon reading up on his actions, the ideals and issues the German Third Reich adressed, I began to see how much of a lie had been painted about them. They truly were doing it for the better."

On April 19 2004, he posted to the talkboard: "By the way, I'm being blamed for a threat on the school I attend because someone said they were going to shoot up the school on 4/20, Hitlers birthday, and just because I claim being a National Socialist, guess whom they've pinned?"

By May 26 the incident seemed to have blown over, with Todesengel posting: "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."

The gun rampage through the remote northern Minnesota reservation yesterday left 10 people dead. Reports suggested that Weise took a shotgun and at least one handgun belonging to his grandfather, a veteran local police officer. He shot his grandparents, who later died, before moving on to Red Lake high school and killing five students, a teacher, a security guard and ultimately himself.

Today the Libertarian National Socialist Green party said incidents such as yesterday's shooting were to be expected when "thinking people are crammed into an unthinking, irrational modern society".

"We knew [Weise] briefly through 34 posts he made on the forum. He expressed himself well and was clearly highly intelligent and contemplative, especially for one so young," the site's administrator said in statement posted today on Nazi.org.

"Weise participated in the forum in part because, unlike 'white nationalist' or 'white power' movements, the LNSG embraces all races as part of its vision of world nationalism. His statements on the site reflected a frustration with the populist politics and materialistic arrogance of modern society," the statement continued.

In a July 13 post, NativeNazi expressed his concern that Native Americans had turned their backs on racial purity and were being weakened by "interracial mixing". He was particularly annoyed that young Native Americans were copying the culture of African Americans.

"Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run ramped. We have kids my age killing each other over things as simple as a fight, and it's because of the rap influence. Wannabe-gangsters everywhere, I can't go 5 feet without hearing someone blasting some rap song over their speakers," he complained.

He went on: "It's hard though, being a Native American National Socialist, people are so misinformed, ignorant, and close minded it makes your life a living hell."

[mrcooper]

As Underwater Mike stated, it would be hard to carry concealed b/c the laws (at least for Ohio) state that no firearm, unless carried by law enforcement, may be brought upon state property or anywhere else that posts signs saying No Firearms, etc.

Would it be submissable in court if someone did bring a firearm into the school and protected the kids....probably not b/c it would violate the above law. Either way, the hand gun isn't the point of this thread. The point is, what do we do to keep our children/the children of today safe? I don't have kids, nor am I married...yet, but you gotta wonder. Does the system really do a good job, espically after all the training that the school system was supposed to receive after Colombine?

[Bofinn]

Originally Posted by mrcooper

Does the system really do a good job, espically after all the training that the school system was supposed to receive after Colombine?

no amount of training could have stopped this. If someone wants to enter a building with a gun, they are going to do it.

All the training will help save lives though. Like when the teachers know to lock down their classrooms in an emergency. oops, that didn't happen because the teacher thought the gun shots were the janitor.

Even if there were 2 armed guards at the entrance of the school, this kid would have known the school's routine, and taken them both out in 2 seconds flat.

[Underwater Mike]

Originally Posted by Gbud

But do you think they could get a jury to convict you if you did have a carry gun and used it to save some kids? I doubt it.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

But, the point is that if you are a law-abiding gun owner, you wouldn't be carrying on school property, period, so you'd never have the opportunity to use the weapon against the bad guy(s).

EDIT: Whoops, I see that mrcooper already made a similar point...