A 19-year-old who killed a instructor and a 15-year-old lady at a St. Louis highschool was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and what gave the impression to be greater than 600 rounds of ammunition, a police official mentioned Tuesday.
Orlando Harris additionally left behind a handwritten notice providing his rationalization for the capturing Monday at Central Visible and Performing Arts Excessive College, St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack instructed reporters. Tenth-grader Alexzandria Bell and 61-year-old bodily schooling instructor Jean Kuczka died and 7 college students had been wounded earlier than police killed Harris in an trade of gunfire.
Sack learn Harris’ notice wherein the younger man lamented that he had no buddies, no household, no girlfriend and a lifetime of isolation. Harris known as it the “good storm for a mass shooter.”
Sack mentioned that Harris had ammunition strapped to his chest and in a bag, and that extra magazines had been discovered dumped in stairwells.
“This might have been a lot worse,” Sack mentioned.
The assault pressured college students to barricade doorways and huddle in classroom corners, soar from home windows and run out of the constructing to hunt security. One lady mentioned she was eye to eye with the shooter earlier than his gun apparently jammed and he or she was in a position to run out. A number of folks inside the varsity mentioned they heard Harris warn, “You're all going to die!”
Harris graduated from the varsity final 12 months. Sack, talking at a information convention, urged folks to return ahead when somebody who seems to endure from psychological sickness or misery begins “talking about buying firearms or inflicting hurt to others.”
Alexzandria was a vibrant, charismatic lady with a sassy persona who was working laborious to enhance her dancing and her grades, mentioned Central’s principal, Kacy Seals-Shahid. She was a member of the varsity’s junior varsity dance crew, her father mentioned.
“Alexzandria was my every thing,” her father, Andre Bell, instructed KSDK-TV. “She was joyful, great and only a nice individual.
“She was the lady I liked to see and liked to listen to from. Regardless of how I felt, I might all the time speak to her and it was all proper. That was my child,” he mentioned.
The morning of the capturing, Alexzandria’s mom introduced her daughter’s glasses to the varsity when she observed the teenager had left them dwelling. Her mother obtained to the varsity earlier than Alexzandria arrived by college bus.
“When Alex obtained off her bus, I requested her, ‘Aren’t you going to want these, as a result of you may’t see with out these?’” Seals-Shahid mentioned. “The household was tremendous supportive of Alexzandria.”
Abby Kuczka mentioned her mom was killed when the gunman burst into her classroom and he or she moved between him and her college students.
“My mother liked children,” Abbey Kuczka instructed the St. Louis Submit-Dispatch. “She liked her college students. I do know her college students checked out her like she was their mother.”
The seven injured college students are all 15 or 16 years outdated. Sack mentioned 4 suffered gunshot or graze wounds, two had bruises and one had a damaged ankle — apparently from leaping out of the three-story constructing. All had been listed in secure situation.
The college in south St. Louis was locked, with seven safety guards on the doorways, St. Louis faculties Supt. Kelvin Adams mentioned. A safety guard initially grew to become alarmed when he noticed Harris making an attempt to get in one of many doorways. He had a gun and “there was no thriller about what was going to occur. He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent method,” Sack mentioned.
That guard alerted college officers and made certain police had been contacted.
Harris managed to get inside anyway. Sack declined to say how, saying he didn’t need to “make it simple” for anybody else who needs to interrupt into a faculty.
Police provided this timeline: A 911 name got here in at 9:11 a.m. alerting police of an energetic shooter. Officers — some who had been off-duty sporting road garments — arrived at 9:15.
Police positioned Harris at 9:23 on the third ground, the place he had barricaded himself inside a classroom. Police mentioned in a information launch that when Harris shot at officers, they shot again and broke via the door.
At 9:25 a.m., when Harris pointed his rifle at police, they fired a number of photographs. He was secured by police at 9:32.
Police mentioned Alexzandria was present in a hallway and died on the scene. Kuczka was present in a classroom and died at a hospital.
Central Visible and Performing Arts shares a constructing with one other magnet college, Collegiate College of Medication and Bioscience. Central has 383 college students, Collegiate 336.
It was the fortieth college capturing this 12 months leading to accidents or loss of life, in line with a tally by Training Week — essentially the most in any 12 months because it started monitoring shootings in 2018. The lethal assaults embody the killings of 19 kids and two lecturers at Robb Elementary College in Uvalde, Texas, in Might.
Matt Davis, president of the St. Louis Board of Training, mentioned police and college officers reacted shortly to Monday’s capturing.
“And but, we're nonetheless left with tragedy,” Davis mentioned.
For now, the survivors are coping with the trauma.
The gunman pointed his weapon at Raymond Parks, a dance instructor, however didn't shoot him, Parks mentioned. The scholars in his class escaped exterior and Parks stopped site visitors and obtained somebody to name the police. They got here shortly.
“You couldn’t have requested for higher,” Parks mentioned of the police response.
Ashley Rench mentioned she was educating superior algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud bang. Then the varsity intercom introduced, “Miles Davis is within the constructing.”
“That’s our code for intruder,” Rench mentioned.
The gunman tried the door of the classroom however didn't pressure his approach in, she mentioned. When police began banging, she wasn’t certain whether or not it was regulation enforcement till she was in a position to look out and see officers.
“Let’s go!” she instructed the scholars.
Salter reported from O’Fallon, Mo. Related Press writers Margaret Stafford and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas Metropolis, Mo., contributed to this report.
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