Posted on 10/11/2007 10:12:06 AM PDT by DCBryan1
Student gunman in Ohio warned of attack,
By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 11, 7:42 AM ET
CLEVELAND - A 14-year-old student who opened fire at his high school, wounding four people before killing himself, had a history of mental problems and was known for cussing at teachers and bickering with students.
Asa H. Coon, who had been suspended for fighting, warned classmates of an attack — but none took him seriously.
"When he got suspended, he was like `I got something for you all,'" said student Frances Henderson, who said she often got into arguments with Coon. "I guess this is what he had."
Police believe Coon targeted the two teachers he shot Wednesday. He also shot two students while others hid in closets and bathrooms or ran out of SuccessTech Academy alternative school. Students gathered outside, many in tears, hugging one another and talking on cell phones.
Parents were angry that firearms got into a school equipped with metal detectors that students said were intermittently used.
Coon's troubles seemed to come to a tipping point this week when he was suspended for fighting outside with a classmate. Students said Monday's fight was over God — Coon told his classmates he didn't believe in God and instead worshipped rocker Marilyn Manson.
Armed with two revolvers Wednesday, Coon fired eight shots, Police Chief Michael McGrath said. Police found a duffel bag stocked with ammunition and three knives in a bathroom, but no suicide note, he said.
Math teacher David Kachadourian, who was treated at a hospital for a minor wound to the back of one shoulder, knew of no reason why Coon might target him. Coon was a student in his beginning algebra class.
"I never felt personally threatened or personally at risk," Kachadourian said. "I had concerns about him, yes. He seemed like an angry young man. I did not fear for my own safety."
Kachadourian said he was struggling to make sense of the shootings.
"At the time it didn't seem real," he told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday. "It didn't seem real until they told us that other people had been shot and that he had died and then it became really awful."
Coon had mental health problems, spent time in two juvenile facilities and threatened to commit suicide while in a mental health facility, according to juvenile court records obtained by The Plain Dealer newspaper.
The Department of Children and Family Services was called to Coon's home in 2000 because he had burns on his arms and scratches on his forehead, the newspaper said.
Mu>When he was 12, Coon was charged in juvenile court with domestic violence. His mother, Lori, had called police and told them her son slapped her and called her a vulgar name. She had been trying to intervene in a fight between Coon and his twin sister, The Plain Dealer reported.
He was also suspended from school last year for attempting to hurt a student, the newspaper said.
"He used to cuss all the teachers out," said Henderson, 14.
Coon, who was white, stood out in the predominantly black school for dressing in a goth style, wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains, she said.
Henderson, who is black, she said she didn't believe race played a role in the shootings.
"He's crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody," said Doneisha LeVert, 14. "We didn't think nothing of it."
People at Coon's home late Wednesday declined to comment.
All classes in the city school district were canceled Thursday, and school officials said counseling would be available for students at recreation centers throughout Cleveland.
Witnesses said the shooter moved through SuccessTech, a converted downtown office building, working his way up through the first two floors of administrative offices to the third floor of classrooms. He was wearing a Manson shirt, black jeans and black-painted finger nails, police said.
Charles Blackwell, president of SuccessTech's student-parent organization, said he did not know how Coon got into the building.
Blackwell said there was a security guard on the first floor, but that the position of another guard on the third floor had been eliminated.
The first person shot, 14-year-old Michael Peek, had punched Coon in the face right before the shootings began, student Rasheem Smith said.
Coon "came out of the bathroom and bumped Mike and he (Mike) punched him in his face. Mike started walking. He shot Mike in the side," said Smith, 15.
Darnell Rodgers, 18, was walking up to another floor when the stairway suddenly became flooded with students. "They were screaming, and they were saying, `Oh my God! Oh my God!' I knew something was wrong, but thought that it was probably just a fight, so I just kept going," Rodgers said.
He realized he had been shot when he felt his arm burning.
Rodgers was released from a hospital after treatment for a graze wound to his right elbow. He told NBC's "Today" on Thursday that he didn't believe he was targeted and that the shooter didn't speak as he fired.
"He just fired the gun," Rodgers said. "He didn't say anything."
The other student shot was taken to a children's hospital, which would not release the student's condition.
Michael Grassie, a 42-year-old history teacher, was hospitalized in fair condition late Wednesday after about 90 minutes of surgery. Without naming Grassie, emergency room physician Thomas Collins told "Today" that the teacher who underwent surgery had sustained "some pretty significant injuries" to his spleen and pancreas, "but he's a very tough man."
SuccessTech Academy, with about 240 students, is an alternative high school in the public school district that stresses technology and entrepreneurship.
Associated Press writers James Hannah, Terry Kinney, M.R. Kropko, John Seewer and Thomas J. Sheeran and Andrew Welsh-Huggins contributed to this report.
political correctness is going to get a lot of us killed....and indeed has already done so.
All the children who have died in school shootings over the last 10 years are all monuments to PC. I think that there were warnings in each case that the shooter was an unstable lunatic.
I contend that most of our soldiers who have died in all muzlum attacks in the last 30 years and in this current pc war that is being waged right now, amount to sacrifices to the gods of PC....all died in the hope that the muzzies will leave us alone....live and let live.
It has to be getting now clear, even to the most hard core appeaser that the muzlims don't really give a rat's ass about "live and let live".
“One thing about my black friends is that they love Jesus.”
They also appear to love abortion and gay rights. 17 million abortions from a minority group of 35 million, plus 40 black elected members of congress who fanatically support those issues, doesn’t suggest there is any Christian influence in the black community at all.
I won’t go into gangs, drugs, illegitimacy, etc.
The flock of the black pastors is scattered all over the hills and is being ravaged by wolves.
Give someone a reason to fear you, and they will leave you alone.
Are you sure you posted to the right comment/person?
“Manson claims to be a conservative guy”
LOL! That’s not what I’ve heard. If 5% of the stories I’ve heard from other musicians are true, he’s very far from conservative!
Basic law of nature,whether on the schoolyard or foreign policy.You have to show the bully you”ain’t the one to be f***** with”.
And remember what Neitzsche said,”cruelty comes from a feeling of weakness”
Public school no longer teaches. Period.
I wonder if anyone remembers the old Elton John song from when he was still a real human and not some grotesque cartoon.
Burn down the mission, Lord, if you want to stay alive
Its your only chance of living take all you need....
Report said that he had previously had mental problems- and didn’t say if he was currently being treated or medicated- wonder if he was on ritilin, prozac or any other wonder(?) drug(s)? Many/ most school shooters are. Scary.
Well he did record a little diddy ‘bout “The Beautiful People”...
Its got a pretty good guitar riff...I kinda liked it...
I guess that makes me homicidal...
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - Karl Marx"I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under Socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well." - George Bernard Shaw
I have pondered lately that if I walk into my job,loudly proclaim,”I ain’t doing s*** today”,throw objects at fellow employees and call my supervisor a bitch,I will be escorted out of the building by security and lose my job.
If I am seventeen years old and do the same thing at a public school,I will be sent to the Vice Principal’s offce to cool out for a half hour and then get sent back to class.
The absurdity of it all!
I know times have changed over the years, but how does a forteen year old get his hands on two revolvers with lots of ammo.
A white kid named "coon" in a 90% black school,getting his butt kicked constantly. No racial undertones there, no sir....
It doesn’t look like they left him alone though. He was a puncj=hing bag. heck, he was punchd in the face just before he started shooting, just for bumping into someone. You have to wonder how often that occurred.
[ I think that there were warnings in each case that the shooter was an unstable lunatic. ]
Thank the communist's for the IDEA that made this probable.
[...sacrifices to the gods of PC]
Perhaps he was a victim of thuggery like you say.Then his folks should have insisted on martial arts training so he could have put his tormenter on his back.
All it takes is ONE time and then the rest will leave you the hell alone.
And there lies the problem, no one pays attention, no one cares, no one takes anyone seriously, no one respects LIFE,,,,look at what this 14 y/o said,,,,We didn't think nothing of it,,,,the killer had threatened to blow up the school and stab everybody and they "didn't think nothing of it" WTH is wrong with this picture?
[I hope that Marilyn Mansion sees HOW he is influencing kids and it is in a NEGATIVE way.]
The interview he gave in Bowling for Columbine indicates Marilyn Manson knows EXACTLY what he's doing. His exploitation of the tyranny of the appetite is not substantially any different from that of the consumerism that he rails against. He is a parasite and a hypocrite.
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