Minn. teen kills 7 at school, 2 at home, and
himself
By Bill Gardner, St. Paul Pioneer
Press, March 22, 2005
RED LAKE, Minn. - A towering young loner who always wore a dark trench
coat to Red Lake High School went on a shooting spree Monday, killing
nine people, including his grandfather and a woman at their home and
five students, a teacher and a security guard on campus before turning
a gun on himself.
At least a dozen other students were wounded by the teenage gunman,
identified by tribal members as Jeff Weise, a sophomore who enjoyed
Marilyn Manson music and had expressed his admiration for Adolf Hitler
on various online forums.
It was the nation's worst school shooting since two teens in Columbine,
Colo, killed 12 students and a teacher in 1999. The shooting took place
on the Red Lake Indian Reservation about 300 miles north of the Twin
Cities.
In a couple of postings to a nationalist forum last year, Weise eerily
foreshadowed Monday's events. He claimed last April that authorities
had questioned him about alleged plans to "shoot up the school on 4/20,
Hitlers (sic) birthday."
On Internet sites Weise sometimes used the names "Todesengel"-German
for "angel of death"-or "NativeNazi."
Students gave a terrifying account of the attack.
One student said the shooting continued for nearly a half-hour, and
that she hid in a classroom adjacent to where police say most of the
bodies were found. The student said she lost a close friend in the
rampage.
"You could hear people screaming and sobbing," she said.
She said Weise, 15, with whom she once shared a class, had not been
attending school recently. He was viewed as "weird" by other students.
"He's antisocial," the student said. She said she never heard him talk
about Nazis, but, "In pictures he draws, his people have little hats
with Nazi signs on them."
Relatives said Weise was teased a lot at school "and he snapped." They
said his father committed suicide four years ago and his mother lives
in a nursing home in Minneapolis after sustaining brain injuries in a
car accident.
The shootings began in the early afternoon when Weise killed his
grandfather, Daryl "Dash" Lussier, 58, and his girlfriend at their home
in Red Lake and then took his grandfather's police weapons, including
two handguns and a shotgun. Lussier was a longtime veteran of the Red
Lake police force.
About 3 p.m. Weise drove to the high school in his grandfather's police
vehicle, said a student who asked not to be identified.
A student said Weise parked the squad car near the front door, where he
confronted two unarmed security officers-one male and one female-and
fired two shots. The female guard took off down the hall, collecting
students. The male guard stayed near Weise.
"He didn't do anything. He just stared at him. And (Weise) shot him,"
the student said.
Red Lake police officers arrived during the rampage and exchanged
gunfire with Weise in the hallway, authorities said. Weise then
retreated to a classroom.
Weise died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to preliminary
investigation, the FBI said.
The names of the other victims were withheld pending notification of
relatives.
The school has security cameras inside and out and students must pass
through metal detectors as they enter the building, also patrolled by
security guards.
It was too early to speculate on a motive, said FBI spokesman Paul
McCabe at a news conference Monday night in Minneapolis. McCabe said
the teacher and students who were killed were shot in a single
classroom. The FBI is the lead investigative agency for crimes on an
Indian reservation.
"It will probably take us throughout the night to really put the whole
picture together," McCabe said.
Some of the wounded were taken to North Country Regional Hospital in
Bemidji and others to MeritCare Hospital in Fargo, N.D. MeritCare
Hospital received its first Red Lake patient at 5:45 p.m. and the
second at 7 p.m., spokeswoman Carrie Johnson said. She said she was
still confirming whether the hospital would receive more shooting
victims. No conditions reports were immediately available.
Approximately 5,100 people live on the reservation, which encompasses
825,000 acres of land in northern Minnesota.
One mother of a middle-school student said she was concerned about her
son because the middle school is next to the high school, and he heard
the shots.
"That's the most horrible thing to have happened," said the mother, who
wouldn't let her name be used.
Her son, a sixth-grader, was still shaking Monday night, hours after
the incident.
"I heard seven gunshots, then I seen my security guard, he was running
toward the high school," said the youth. "I heard shooting a bunch of
times, then they said, 'lockdown! lockdown!' and I ran to my class. You
could hear the shots all the way from the high school to middle school.
I was scared."
The boy said he didn't see the alleged gunman, but that he heard that
he had painted his face white and wore a trench coat and baggy pants.
Bob Thunder, a Metropolitan Transit police officer who grew up on the
Red Lake Reservation, said Lussier "worked as an officer for more than
30 years, and he believed in what he was doing. I saw him at the recent
(tribal chief) inauguration and asked him when he was going to retire.
He told me 'soon.' "
It was the second major school shooting in Minnesota in less than two
years. In September 2003, two students were shot and killed at Rocori
High School in central Minnesota.
The shooting had immediate ramifications across the state, including at
the Capitol. A hearing scheduled for today on a proposal to expand
casino gambling in Minnesota was canceled. The Red Lake Band is one of
three groups that are seeking to partner with the state on a Twin
Cities area casino.
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(St. Paul Pioneer Press reporters Ruben Rosario, Beth Silver, Jason
Hoppin, Paul Tosto and the Grand Forks Herald contributed to this
report. )
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