Motive Sought in Minn. School Rampage

[jamotto]

Link

quote:

---

By JOSHUA FREED, Associated Press Writer

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, who authorities said was 16, 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 Lussier'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. A teacher and 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" ÔÇö German for "Angel of Death" ÔÇö 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.

School board member Kathryn Beaulieu said Weise had been placed in the school's Homebound program for a policy violation. She did not elaborate.

Relatives told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Weise was a loner who was often teased by others. They said his father committed suicide eight years ago and his mother was living in a Minneapolis nursing home because she suffered brain injuries in a car accident.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported in its Wednesday editions that the boy's father, Daryl Lussier Jr., killed himself in July 1997 after a daylong standoff with police. The grandfather who was killed, Daryl Lussier, tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution, the newspaper said.

Residents at the home where Weise was believed to have lived with his grandmother declined to comment Tuesday. School was canceled for the day as investigators scoured the building for clues.

Chris Dunshee, the high school principal, wouldn't comment on a possible motive either. But he said Weise "would not be what I would call an habitual troublemaker." And he said he wasn't aware of a lot of teasing.

"I didn't really, I guess, feel that he was teased to the point where something like this would happen," Dunshee said.

At the Capitol in St. Paul, several hundred people attended a prayer ceremony for victims of the shooting where religious leaders joined Indians in drumming and chanting.

"Once again our people have been hit ... but our people are strong," said Ona Kingbird, a Red Lake tribal member. "We'll come out of it."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty expressed his condolences for the families of the victims and said it appeared the school had "very rigorous security."

"It looks like you had a very disturbed individual who was able to overcome a lot of precautions to do a lot of damage," the governor said.

But a school secretary and a cousin of the slain security guard said that Brun and a female security guard who fled from Weise did not carry guns. Brun's cousin, Nancy Richards, said Brun also did not wear a bulletproof vest.

It 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 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.

---

[Wolferz]

I see that political correctness continues to fall short when it comes to references to Native Americans.

Maybe he read William Poole's story or had met him in a chat room. I can see the tie in now.

Just another event perpetrated by a psycho that will be used as an excuse to curtail the protections of the Bill of Rights.

[jamotto]

Nah, now the NRA is trying to arm teachers

NRA Leader Advocates Guns for Teachers

quote:

---

By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN, Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX - All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota school shooting that took 10 lives ÔÇö including making guns available to teachers, a top National Rifle Association leader said Friday.

"I'm not saying that that means every teacher should have a gun or not, but what I am saying is we need to look at all the options at what will truly protect the students," the NRA's first vice president, Sandra S. Froman, told The Associated Press.

Gun-control restrictions would not have prevented Jeff Weise, 16, from killing nine people and himself Monday at Red Lake High School near Bemidji, Minn., said Froman, an attorney expected next month to be elected president of the NRA, which claims 4 million members.

The presence of an unarmed guard at the school failed to stop the siege, she noted.

"No gun law, no policy that you could implement now or that was already implemented, I think, could possibly prevent someone so intent on destruction," she said. "I think everything's on the table as far as looking at what we need to do to make our schools safe for our students."

Froman said if it is the responsibility of teachers to protect students in a school, "then we as a society, we as a community have to provide a way for the teachers to do that."

Froman cited the 1997 school shooting incident in Pearl, Miss., where a teacher retrieved a gun from his car when a student opened fire, then held the student at bay until police arrived.

A law prohibiting guns in schools "is not going to stop someone who has evil in their heart and who has the capacity to commit those crimes from doing them," Froman said.

---

[Wolferz]

Froman seems to have some common sense and I agree. We have armed airline pilots to protect passengers from terrorist hijackers. Hopefully with rubber bullets. Maybe arming teachers to protect their students might be the answer to preventing this type of tragedy. It's unfortunate that this has gone way past the isolated incident category. I am of the opinion that it will occur more frequently in the future because of the financial squeeze being placed on the family by greedy corporate and governmental types. Too many families out there that require two wage earners just to make ends meet. Then there are the single parents who struggle to hold down a low paying job and they are forced by financial neccessity to leave their child/children at home, unsupervised. This is the recipe for these types of events. Add in a parent with a drug and/or alcohol problem and you get an abused child that is seething inside like a volcano. Sooner or later it erupts in violence and death.

Boil this one down and it begs the question:

"Why didn't grampa have his weapon/s locked up?? I doubt it would take anyone more than a few seconds to put in a trigger lock or put their ammunition in a combination safe.

At any rate, people die, that's a given. It's unfortunate that so many people have trouble dealing with the time, place, and method of departure. I'm sure the big drug company guys are high fiving each other in a board room somewhere. They get to sell more drugs to screw up more people to kill more people. It's a Win Win for the Prozac makers.

[LostInSpace]

Personally, I don't think they are looking for a motive but somewhere or something to lay the blame on this rather than perpetrator of this crime. Well, let me give the powers that be a head start with this: The kid might be a victim of Counter Strike and this clip (which was posted by someone else in another thread) PWNED (language warning).