Read 8 Dead in School Shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation
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Read Teen's Rampage Leaves 10 Dead in Minn.
Read Red Lake in shock after gun rampage by teenaged 'Angel of Death'

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8 Dead in School Shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation

ST. PAUL, Minn. (Reuters) - Eight people were shot dead and more than a dozen wounded on Monday by a student who opened fire at a high school and a home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, authorities said.

Reuters Photo AP Photo Slideshow: Minnesota Student Kills 9, Shoots Self Teen Gunman Kills 10 Including Self in Minnesota (AP Video)

Among the dead was a male security guard, a female teacher, three students and the gunman, FBI (news - web sites) agent Paul McCabe said. As many as 15 other students were injured. "They believe the shooter is among the dead and was acting alone," McCabe said. Prior to the afternoon school shooting, the student shot dead a couple at a home on the reservation, McCabe said. Other officials identified the couple as the gunman's grandparents, who were apparently among the dead. His grandfather was a longtime police officer on the reservation, a fire department official told CBS News. "The young man, whoever he is, shot his grandfather and grandmother, and then went to the school and shot as many as 16 more," said Vernon Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis. The reservation is home to the Ojibwa tribe, commonly known as the Chippewa, Bellecourt said.

The shooting follows the March 12 shooting deaths of seven congregants at a church service near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which ended when the gunman killed himself.

In 2003, a student at Rocori High School in central Minnesota gunned down two classmates. He is awaiting trial.

Slide Show Sixteen-year-old Christopher Morrison, a tenth grader at the Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn. pauses in the lobby of the North County Regional Hospital in Bemidji, Minn. on Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Morrison's sister was in the Red Lake High School when Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student, shot seven people in the school. Weise's also reportedly killed his grand-father and his grand-father's wife. Weise killed himself afterwards. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
	Red Lake Conservation Enforcement officers patrol outside Red Lake Middle School, right and the Red Lake High School, in the background, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minn. on Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student, reportedly killled a school security guard, a teacher and five other students in the high school on Monday. At least 14 others were wounded. He also shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather's wife. Weise killed himself afterwards. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
A sign outside the Red Lake High School warns against the prohibition of weapons in the school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minn. on Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student, reportedly killled a school security guard, a teacher and five other students in the high school on Monday. At least 14 others were wounded. He also shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather's wife. Weis killed himself afterwards. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
	Video image shows the Red Lake High School on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, March 21, 2005. Eight people were shot dead on Monday by a student who killed his grandparents and opened fire at the school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota before killing himself in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in six years, authorities said. NO SALES EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Reuters TV
	Family members and friends await word on loved ones as they stand outside Red Lake Hospital after a shooting spree at Red Lake High School, Monday, May, 21, 2005, in Red Lake, Minn. A high school student went on a shooting rampage Monday, killing his grandparents at their home and then five people at his school on an Indian reservation. The gunman himself was later found shot to death, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Bemidji Pioneer, Monte Draper)
	Red Lake High School students, from left, Sondra Hegstrom, Marla Hegstrom and Ashley Morrison weep together following a deadly shooting rampage, Monday, March 21, 2005, at their school in Red Lake, Minn. A high school student went on a shooting rampage Monday, killing his grandparents at their home and then five people at his school on an Indian reservation. The gunman himself was later found shot to death, authorities said. (AP Photo/Bemidji Pioneer, Molly Miron)
Red Lake School District Superintendent Stuart Desjarlait comforts a teacher following a deadly shooting at Red Lake High School, Monday afternoon, March 21, 2005, in Red Lake, Minn. A gunman opened fire Monday at the high school on an Indian reservation, killing six people and wounding two critically, with the suspect believed among those dead, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Bemidji Pioneer, Molly Miron)

Teen's Rampage Leaves 10 Dead in Minn.

U.S. National - AP

By JOSHUA FREED, Associated Press Writer

REDBY, Minn. - The suspect in the worst U.S. school shooting since Columbine smiled and waved as he gunned down five students, a teacher and a guard, asking one of his victims whether he believed in God, witnesses said. The teen's grandfather and his grandfather's wife also were found dead, and the boy killed himself.

Some of the victims were shot at close range, medical officials said.

Reggie Graves, a student at Red Lake High School, said he was watching a movie about Shakespeare in class Monday when he heard the gunman blast his way past the metal detector at the school's entrance, where an unarmed guard was killed.

Then, in a nearby classroom, he heard the gunman say something to his friend Ryan. "He asked Ryan if he believed in God," Graves said. "And then he shot him."

The death toll at the Red Lake Indian Reservation in far northern Minnesota made it the nation's worst school shooting since the rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999 that ended with the deaths of 12 students, a teacher and the two teen gunmen.

The victims included the gunman's grandfather; the grandfather's wife; a school security guard; a teacher; and five other students. At least 14 others were wounded, and two of them remained in critical condition Tuesday at MeritCare in Fargo, N.D., officials said.

At least three of the victims were shot in the head at close range, said officials at North Country Regional Hospital in nearby Bemidji. One of those victims died and the other two were transferred to the Fargo hospital. Three victims remained at North Country Regional in noncritical condition.

"I think there was an intent to kill," Tim Hall, the hospital's emergency nursing director, said at a morning news conference.

"There's not a soul that will go untouched by the tragic loss that we've experienced here," Floyd Jourdain Jr., chairman of the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, told WCCO-TV of Minneapolis on Tuesday.

Police said the gunman killed himself after exchanging fire with officers. Red Lake Fire Director Roman Stately said the gunman had two handguns and a shotgun.

"We ask Minnesotans to help comfort the families and friends of the victims who are suffering unimaginable pain by extending prayers and expressions of support," Gov. Tim Pawlenty said.

The shooter was Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student who had been placed in the school's Homebound program for some violation of policy, said school board member Kathryn Beaulieu. Students in that program stay at home and are tutored by a traveling teacher. Beaulieu said she didn't know what Weise's violation was, and wouldn't be allowed to reveal it if she did.

There was no immediate indication of Weise's motive. But several students said he held anti-social beliefs, and he may have posted messages on a neo-Nazi Web site expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler.

A writer who identified himself as Jeff Weise of the Red Lake Reservation posted the messages under the nickname "Todesengel" — German for "angel of death." An April 2004 posting by him referred to being accused of "a threat on the school I attend," though the writer later said he was cleared.

Relatives told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Weise was a loner who usually wore black and was teased by other kids. Relatives told the newspaper his father committed suicide four years ago, and that his mother was living in a Minneapolis nursing home because she suffered brain injuries in a car accident.

The governor said it appeared the school had "very rigorous security."

"It looks like you had a very disturbed individual who was able to overcome a lot of precautions to do a lot of damage," Pawlenty said.

Beaulieu said school was canceled Tuesday, but plans hadn't been made for the rest of the week.

During the rampage, teachers herded students from one room to another, trying to move away from the sound of the shooting, said Graves, 14. He said some students crouched under desks.

Some pleaded with the gunman to stop. "You could hear a girl saying, 'No, Jeff, quit, quit. Leave me alone. What are you doing?'" Sondra Hegstrom told The Pioneer of Bemidji.

Student Ashley Morrison said she heard shots, then saw the gunman's face peering though a door window of a classroom where she was hiding with several other students. After banging at the door, the shooter walked away and she heard more shots, she said.

"I can't even count how many gunshots you heard, there was over 20. ... There were people screaming, and they made us get behind the desk," she said.

FBI (news - web sites) spokesman Paul McCabe said the gunman exchanged gunfire with Red Lake police in a hallway, then retreated to a classroom, where he was believed to have shot himself.

The reservation, about 240 miles north of the Twin Cities, is home to the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, one of the poorest in the state. According to the 2000 census, 5,162 people lived on the reservation, and all but 91 were Indians.

It was the second fatal school shooting in Minnesota in 18 months. Two students were killed at Rocori High School in Cold Spring in September 2003. Student John Jason McLaughlin, who was 15 at the time, awaits trial in the case.

Red Lake High School has about 300 students, according to its Web site.

On the Net:

Red Lake High School: http://www.paulbunyan.net/rlschools/hs.htm

Red Lake Nation: http://www.redlakenation.org/

World - AFP

RED LAKE, United States (AFP) - Grieving parents and friends gathered outside a Red Lake school after a rampage by a self-styled teenaged "Angel of Death" who killed nine people before shooting himself.

AFP Photo

Police sealed streets around the Red Lake High School in the isolated Indian reservation town in Minnesota, allowing only family and friends of pupils to wait outside.

Tearful adults and children embraced each other, stunned by the impact of the United States' worst school killings since the Columbine massacre in 1999.

Witnesses and school officials named the gunman as Jeff Weise, a 15-year-old loner who had expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and had used the names "Todesengel" -- German for "Angel of Death" -- and "NativeNazi" when signing on to extreme right-wing Internet sites, St Paul's Pioneer Press newspaper reported.

According to police, the suspect shot his grandfather and a female companion on Monday afternoon before going to the school, where he killed seven more people and wounded 12 others before shooting himself.

"This is without a doubt the darkest hour in the history of our tribe," said Floyd Jourdain, leader of the tribe in Red Lake, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Canadian border.

Weise carried at least a shotgun and a handgun into the school, according to witnesses and authorities.

One student, Sondra Hegstrom, told the local Bemidji, Minnesota newspaper The Pioneer how she heard the carnage from an adjoining classroom.

"You could hear a girl saying, 'No, Jeff. Quit! Quit! Leave me alone. Why are you doing this?' Boom, boom, boom, and then no more screaming," she said.

"I looked him in the eye and ran in a room, and that's when I hid," she said. "I called 911 from a cell phone and they said, 'Just sit there and wait until the cops come.'"

The newspaper's editor quoted a student at Red Lake High School as saying the killer pointed his gun at a boy, changed his mind, smiled, waved and shot somebody else.

Authorities said five students and a female teacher were killed in one room and at least a dozen people were wounded. A male security guard was also killed.

Students and teachers hid inside classrooms and used their cell phones to alert police.

Teacher Diane Schwanz said the teenager tried to break through the door to her classroom. "I just got on the floor and called the cops. I was still just half-believing it," she told The Pioneer.

"No one would ever think that that type of violence would visit itself in our communities," she added.

"Apparently, he walked down the hallway shooting and then he entered a classroom, he shot several students and a teacher, then himself," Roman Stately of Red Lake Fire Department told reporters.

He said the bodies of the boy's grandfather and his partner were found one hour after the school shooting.

The teenaged gunman was a quiet, much-teased loner who had a disturbed background.

"I guess I've always carried a natural admiration for Hitler and his ideals, and his courage to take on larger nations," Weise wrote last year in an online forum frequented by neo-Nazis. He would wear a dark trenchcoat to school every day.

School workers described Weise as "a mixed-up kid who seemed lost in life."

Relatives said that his father committed suicide four years ago and that his mother is in a nursing home because of brain injuries following an auto accident.

The killing spree was the deadliest at a US school since the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two teenagers killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before shooting themselves. Two students were shot and killed in September 2003 at a high school in Cold Springs, Minnesota.

The White House said President George W. Bush (news - web sites) had been kept informed of events in Red Lake.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were killed," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "This is a terrible tragedy. I think it's difficult for anyone to fully understand how something like this could happen."

"I encourage all Red Lake Nation members to embrace and support one another in these tragic times," said Jourdain, the Red Lake tribal leader.

Red Lake High School has some 300 students, according to its website. There are about 5,000 people -- mainly American Indians -- in Red Lake