ST. LOUIS — The 19-year-old gunman who opened fire inside a St. Louis high school Monday morning, killing a teacher and a 15-year-old girl, had about 600 rounds of ammo, carried an AR-15-style weapon and left handwritten notes reflecting his state of mind, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said Tuesday.
A notebook belonging to Orlando Harris, identified Monday as the shooter, was found in the car he drove to Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. Sack read a passage to reporters Tuesday in which he called his circumstances the “perfect storm” for a mass shooting, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
According to the newspaper, responding officers shot and killed Harris inside the school, some 14 minutes after authorities fielded the first “active shooter” report.
Harris graduated from the school last year, the Post-Dispatch confirmed.
Ashley Rench told The Associated Press that she was teaching advanced algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud bang. Then the school intercom announced, “Miles Davis is in the building.”
“That’s our code for intruder,” Rench said.
Tenth-grader Alexandria Bell and 61-year-old physical education teacher and mother of five Jean Kuczka died and seven students were wounded before Harris was killed, the AP reported.
“Alexandria was my everything,” her father, Andre Bell, told KSDK-TV. “She was joyful, wonderful and just a great person.”
Meanwhile, Abby Kuczka confirmed to the Post-Dispatch that her mother was killed when the gunman burst into her classroom and she placed herself between Harris and her students.
“My mom loved kids,” Abbey Kuczka told the newspaper, adding, “She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom.”
According to the Post-Dispatch, four students were among those who suffered gunshot wounds, including two who were shot in the leg, one in the arm and one in the hands and jaw. Two other students suffered abrasions, and one girl fractured her ankle.
St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams confirmed to the AP that the south St. Louis school was locked – with seven security guards onsite and near each door – when one of the guards noticed the gunman trying to gain entry.
The intruder, the guard said, was armed with a gun, and “there was no mystery about what was going to happen. He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner,” Sack told reporters.
Monday’s school shooting was the 40th this year resulting in injuries or death, according to a tally by Education Week — the most in any year since it began tracking shootings in 2018. The deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, when 19 children and two teachers died. Monday’s St. Louis shooting came on the same day a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a school shooting that killed four students in December 2021.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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