Red Lake Senior High School rampage

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The Red Lake Senior High School rampage was committed on March 21, 2005 by a high school student in Red Lake , Minnesota . The student Jeffrey Weise (16) killed his grandfather, a police officer, and his girlfriend in their house that morning. After grabbing his grandfather's police weapons and vest, he drove his grandfather's vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School, where he had been a student until a few months ago.

Weise murdered a total of seven people in high school. First, Weise shot the unarmed security guard at the entrance and wounded another five people. In addition to the security guard, he killed a teacher and five students. After the police arrived, there was an exchange of fire between the Weise and the officers. He was wounded and then killed himself in an empty classroom.

Perpetrator

Jeffrey Weise grew up in shaky circumstances. His parents were a young unmarried couple who separated before he was born. His 17-year-old mother, Joanne Weise, insisted on giving her son to the father. When Weise was two years old, his mother wanted him back and moved with him to Minneapolis . Weise said on the Internet that his mother became an alcoholic who suffered physically and emotionally. In 1992 she began a relationship with Timothy Troy DesJarlait, whom she married in 1998 after they had two children together. Wise attended different schools. In 1997, when Weise was nine years old, his father Daryl Lussier, Jr. committed suicide. In 1999, his mother was involved in a car accident and suffered severe brain damage. She had to be treated in a private clinic and was in a coma. In 2000, Troy DesJarlait separated from Wise's mother. Jeff was officially taken into the care of his paternal grandmother Shelda (Gurneau) Lussier, who lived on the Red Lake Reservation. He had to leave Minneapolis, where he had spent most of his childhood, to live with her and other paternal relatives. Wise expressed his frustration with life in Red Lake and felt his life get out of hand. According to some sources, Weise lived with his paternal grandfather, Daryl Lussier, Sr., a sergeant working in the Red Lake Police Department. The household included Daryl Lussier's younger friend, Sr., Michelle Leigh Sigana. But his paternal aunts, Shauna and Tammy Lussier, testified that Weise had lived with them for the most part over the past few years and they helped him undergo treatment for his behavioral disorders and depression. In 2004, shortly after his stepfather's divorce from his mother, Weise made two suicide attempts. He had to stay in a mental hospital for three days. As a teenager, he was treated with the antidepressant Prozac .

Course of action

On the day of the rampage , Weise took a Ruger MK II .22 caliber pistol from his bedroom and shot his grandfather in his sleep, hitting him twice in the head and ten times in the chest. According to friends von Weise, he had had the weapon for more than a year. He took Lussiers two police weapons, a .40 caliber - Glock 23 gun that and a Remington 870 gauge -12-pump-action- shotgun , a gun belt and a bulletproof vest . Then he shot his grandfather's girlfriend twice in the head. Weise drove his grandfather's patrol car to Red Lake Senior High School and arrived at the school at 2:25 pm (Central Standard Time). As he entered the school through the main entrance, he encountered two unarmed security guards. Way, Derrick shot Brun while the other security guard escaped unharmed. Then Weise went into the main aisle of the school. He started shooting wildly in a classroom, killing three students and a teacher and injuring three other students. Ashley Lajeunesse, a student at the time, said Chase Lussier (not directly related to Daryl Lussier, Sr.) protected her and was shot herself. Jeffrey May, a 16-year-old student, tried to wrestle with Weise in the classroom and stabbed him in the stomach with a pencil. So he distracted manner from shooting more students and enabled a few students to escape. Weise shot May twice in the neck and once in the jaw and left him injured on the floor. May survived. After the massacre, eyewitnesses said that Weise constantly smiled during the shooting. An eyewitness also reported that Sage asked a student if he believed in God. It is believed that Weise adopted this line from the 1999 Columbine High School rampage , because one of the shooters asked a student the same thing in that massacre. At 2:52 p.m., Weise returned to the main entrance, where he shot two other students and wounded two other students. When the police arrived there was a four-minute exchange of fire with the shooter. None of the officers was injured, unlike the shooter, who was hit twice, once in the abdomen and once in his right arm. Wise took refuge in an empty classroom, leaned against the wall, pointed the barrel of the shotgun at his chin, and committed suicide.

funeral

The bodies were buried a few days after the rampage. Friends and family of the victims took personal items with them to the ceremony in the church and placed them in the coffins of the victims.

Events after the rampage

  • Buck Jourdain, chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, said the shooting was "one of the darkest and most painful events in the history of our tribe."
  • Louis Jourdain, son of former tribal chairman Floyd Jourdain, Jr., was arrested in connection with the shooting and conspiracy to murder on March 28, 2005. He was charged on the basis of several emails he exchanged with Weise related to plans for the Red Lake High rampage. The government dropped the plot of conspiracy; Jordain pleaded guilty to broadcasting threatening news over the Internet.
  • Derrick Brun, the high school security officer, was honored for his bravery by then-US President George W. Bush .
  • Jeffrey May, who was injured while trying to stop the sage, received high praise. He was mentioned in Reader's Digest and the New York Times .

Motives indeed

According to police findings and media reports, Weise was often bullied and teased at school by his classmates and classmates. He was a tall kid, weighing up to 150 pounds, and wore dark eyeliner to school and a long black trench coat and other black clothing year round. He was referred to as a " Goth kid " by many of his classmates . Some of his fellow students thought he was a loner, but he had his own circle of friends.

Lorene Gurneau, a relative of his paternal grandmother, said she and other family members suspected that Weise never got over his father's suicide. He had grown up in shambles and lost both parents at the age of eleven.

As a teenager, Weise was prescribed Prozac as an antidepressant and treatment should be continued along with the advice of his psychologist. His doctor had increased the dose up to 60 mg per day a week before the shooting. His aunts Shauna and Tammy Lussier expressed concern about the dose increase. Wise murders opened the debate about the use of Prozac in children and adolescents. In October 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning against its use, but it is the only antidepressant approved for use in children.

Web links