Survivors describe terror at school; police have no motive
[KLP Note: One of the articles coming out tonight for tomorrow suggests that the Red Lake Community runs itself...Outsiders can't interfere...Reporters are having a difficult time trying to get any news...They are having to stay on the main road, or they will be evicted from the Community.
In the meantime, here's one article that has tried to piece together what has happened...]
Survivors describe terror at school; police have no motive
BY TED GREGORY
Chicago Tribune
Posted on Tue, Mar. 22, 2005
RED LAKE, Minn. - (KRT) - Ashley Morrison was sitting in class waiting for the bell to ring and signal the end of her day at Red Lake High School on this remote, 8,000-acre reservation in northern Minnesota. Principal Chris Dunshee was in a meeting in the middle school next door.
Pulling into the parking lot was Jeff Weise, a 16-year-old student at Red Lake who liked to dress in a long black coat and purportedly posted Nazi rants on the Web. Other students described Weise as "a goth" and said he was a frequent target of teasing at the high school of 300.
He was driving a stolen police car, authorities said, wearing an armored vest and carrying at least three guns. He may have had revenge on his mind - authorities were unsure.
But less than 10 minutes after reaching the school Monday afternoon, he had killed seven people there. Then he placed a gun to his chin, squeezed the trigger and sent echoes of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings to the reservation's rolling savannas of pine and white birch.
Weise had already killed two others - his grandfather, Daryl Lussier, 58, a sergeant in the Red Lake Police Department, and Lussier's companion, Michelle Sigana, 32, at Lussier's house, according to Michael Tabman, the FBI special agent in charge, In addition to 10 deaths, including Weise's, seven people were wounded.
Tabman said Weise drove to the school entrance about 2:55 p.m. in his grandfather's squad car. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and a gun belt, carrying a .40-caliber handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun - all of which he had taken from Lussier. The teenager had used a .22-caliber for the murders at his grandfather's home, Tabman said, and brought that gun with him to the high school.
When he stepped from the car toward the entrance, he was confronted by an unarmed security guard, Derrick Brun, 28. Weise shot and killed him, according to the FBI agent.
About that time, English teacher Neva Winnecoup Rogers, 62, was walking down the hall with a few students. Weise shot at them and they fled to a classroom.
He followed, stepped into the classroom and began firing, Tabman said, killing several people, including Winnecoup Rogers. Then he walked from the room, down the hall and began "random firing," Tabman added.
A few feet away, Morrison heard what she said sounded initially like books slamming on a desk or floor.
"The teacher told us to hide behind our desks," she recalled, and the students obeyed. "We were hiding under our desks and I saw him and I was like, `That's Jeff Weise. That's who it is.'"
Her ears were ringing with the screams and gunshots, Morrison said. "All I could hear was, `Jeff, don't. Please don't.' There was screaming and then there was gunshots and then there was more screaming," she said. "It was just a nightmare."
Then Weise turned the doorknob and tried to enter the classroom, Morrison recalled. But the door was locked or jammed shut. She pulled out her cell phone and called her mother at work.
Meanwhile, Principal Dunshee had finished the school board meeting.
"When I returned," he recalled, "I went through the high school and I could hear shots."
His first inclination was to "look after my people," Dunshee said. " ... You try to keep your head about you as much as you can because your people are depending on you."
While Dunshee was trying to get his staff to safety, Wendy Johnson, Ashley Morrison's mother, had just heard about the shooting while at work. Then her phone rang and she heard the panic-stricken voice of her daughter.
"She was screaming and crying, `Mom, he's at the door. He's at the door,'" Johnson said. "`Mom, please come get me.'"
Responding to a 911 call, four or five local police officers reached the school, and at least one of them exchanged gunfire with Weise after he emerged from Winnecoup Rogers' room.
Weise returned to the room, turned a gun on himself and fired. It was shortly before 3:05 p.m. About the same time, Morrison and her classmates ran down the hall, past a trail of blood and Brun's body, to safety, she said.
Gunshot victims were taken to North Country Regional Hospital, about 35 miles south in Bemidji, and to MeritCare Hospital in Fargo, N.D.
Authorities and hospital representatives declined to release victims' names, but FBI Special Agent Paul McCabe formally identified those killed. In addition to Lussier, Sigana, Brun and Winnecoup Rogers, Weise killed Thurlene Stillday, 15; Chase Lussier, 15; Chanelle Rosebear, 15; Alicia Spike, 14; Dwayne Lewis, 15, before killing himself. All but Winnecoup Rogers were American Indians from Red Lake. Winnecoup Rogers lived in Bemidji.
Tabman and McCabe said agents have been unable to discern a motive. Weise left no notes.
"At this time, we believe he acted alone," Tabman said, adding that evidence suggested that Weise had done "some planning."
Authorities were looking into whether Weise may have posted admiring messages about Adolf Hitler on a neo-Nazi Web site, but Tabman couldn't confirm Tuesday if the postings were in fact made by Weise.
Morrison said she had heard classmates discussing threats Weise made in recent weeks, but he was a quiet kid, she said, who had a dark side.
"In art class, he'd draw pictures of skeletons and demons, just blood," Morrison said. "He was teased a lot but he never said a lot.
"He would always walk through the halls with his face straight," she added. "He never said anything to anybody."
Citing the "consideration of our own members," Ojibwa Chairman Floyd Jourdein closed the entire reservation - except for Tuesday's press briefing and a local store - to the press and other outsiders.
"This is the last piece of Indian land, as far as we are concerned, left on the planet," Jourdein said, "and we have our own laws. We have our own government. This is Indian land and we fully intend to exercise our sovereignty."
He added that "our community is devastated by this event. We have never seen anything like this in the history of our tribe and, without a doubt, this is the darkest day in the history of our people."
Tuesday afternoon, about 300 people gathered outside the emergency room at North Country Regional Hospital for a traditional Native American prayer service. Bob Shimek, from the Leech Lake Reservation, walked the perimeter of the area and wove his way around the crowd, burning sage in a flat shell. Many spread the smoke over themselves as a symbol of cleansing while other Native Americans were beating drums and signing.
George Whipple Sr., also of Leech Lake, was one of the elders leading the American Indian prayer service. Above the crowd, a hawk was soaring across the pewter sky, drawing the attention of those in attendance.
Whipple wiped tears.
"The spirits were pretty active today," he said. "We gather for those who have gone on to the spirit world. It's a very sad day for all of us, for our young people.
"Columbine," Whipple said. "Today, Red Lake. We have to be strong, my relatives."
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