Tragedy Strikes Minnesota School

Minnesota teenager kills seven at school, two at home, and finally himself.

Bill Gardner/syndicated writer/krt campus

Issue date: 3/25/05 Section: News

<b>GRIEF STRICKEN:</b> Ashley Morrison, 17, a junior at Red Lake High School, talks about the shooting rampage at her school on Monday, March 21, 2005. She and her mother, Wendy Johnson, in background, wait in the lobby of North Country Regional Hospital in Bemidji, Minnesota, on Tuesday, March 22, 2005, to learn the fate of her wounded friends.

Media Credit: JOHN DAMON/ KRT CAMPUS

GRIEF STRICKEN: Ashley Morrison, 17, a junior at Red Lake High School, talks about the shooting rampage at her school on Monday, March 21, 2005. She and her mother, Wendy Johnson, in background, wait in the lobby of North Country Regional Hospital in Bemidji, Minnesota, on Tuesday, March 22, 2005, to learn the fate of her wounded friends.

A Red Lake High School student went on a shooting rampage Monday afternoon, killing his grandfather and a woman at their home and then strapping on his grandfather's police weapons and driving to the high school, where he shot as many as 21 people, killing seven, before turning the gun on himself.

Five of the high school's approximately 330 students, a security guard and a teacher were shot to death on the campus, located on the Red Lake Indian Reservation about 300 miles north of the Twin Cities. As many as 14 other students were wounded as the student fired shots inside the high school.

The student gunman was identified by other tribal members as Jeff Wiese, 15.

Relatives said Wiese was a towering loner who wore black all the time and was teased by other kids. Wiese's father committed suicide four years ago, relatives said, and his mother lives in a nursing home in Minneapolis after sustaining brain injuries in a car accident.

It was too early to speculate on a motive, said FBI spokesman Paul McCabe at a news conference Monday night in Minneapolis. McCabe said all eight people killed at the school 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.

The school was evacuated and remained in lockdown Monday night, McCabe said. Authorities believe the shooter acted alone, he said.

The shootings began in the early afternoon when Wiese killed his grandfather, Daryl "Dash" Lussier, 58, and a woman at their home in Red Lake and then took his grandfather's police weapons. Lussier was a longtime veteran of the Red Lake police force.

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