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.
You should rethink that one.
I have lived this. I did not go postal but I have fought black wolf packs off and on a lot.
They sucker punch and gang up and think nothing of it.
it is hardly a matter of just whipping one guy’s ass and they all back off.
that is how middle class white boys and Bill Cosby fight
you whip one ghetto black guy....if you can get into just a one on one fight and you win....you can expect to have to fight some more ..they cannot stand to see a white guy bust up a brother....even though they may whack said brother for his tennis shoes later that afternoon.
i think I learned this lesson at aged 11....fighting a gang of 8th grade black kids over my pencils...and saved from a serious beatdown by a black homeroom teacher...bless her heart....not to be last black woman to save me like that come to think of it
two years ago when my oldest boy was 5, I watched some 7-8 year old black boys try to make him give up his amusement machine money in the lobby of a Red Robin burger joint....he refused by that was his first time to sense hostility like that and folks wanting to take something out of hand like that....I said something to the parents and they just laughed it off.....it’s the culture I reckon....doesn’t take long for kids to smell the coffee in today’s world.....crap like that did not happen quite that early in my hood...lol
this kid...freaky sociopath or not must have been fresh meat for them....they live to beat the snot out of pasty crackers.,...one snapped on them
that’s all this is
I have seen examples of wimpy white kids humiliated over and over again by black boys at school remorselessly till they are just broken....it’s pathetic
these white kids either go wigger or postal or gay basically.....take yer pick
I’m a big guy and was raised in an era when fighting was de riguer....it must have been hell for this kid.....like prison or Rikers
These two stories occuring closely together have morphed on these threads.
In responding to napscoordinator, my comments apply to the PA incident.
Thanks for the correction Aquinasfan.
really?
I could write for hours on what it’s like to be white in a black majority in urban areas (not rural) and it is 90% negative
I’m suspect of your acount to be honest....I don’t really know anyone in such circumstances with the same glowing reviews
my daughters are at Nashville community college right now prepping for January at private college and the black guys there run the place, are mostly there for Hope money and drop out, and the professors can’t control the classroom....in college.
maybe ghetto kids behave better in kali (?)
that's too bad....blacks have no free will
whites mess up blacks and then we have to fix them?
no wonder so many blacks feel powerless and irresponsible
let me make myself clear for anyone reading .... blacks have free will....they make their own choices and they should be held accountable same as anyone. It is up to the individual black man or woman to get right and quit making excuses or blaming whites. This is 2007 in America. Anyone can achieve the middle class quickly. Work 50-60 hours a week and you are there. Marry someone doing the same and you are doubly there. Move somewhere where 10 bucks an hour matters. This obsession(not you) with excusing blacks and blaming whites is nuts...especially on a conservative ..self reliance site.
Nope. I thought that since the first thing you did in response to my post was mock my spelling of 'Really' that you put correct word usage on the table.
I believe your daughter’s experience might be the rule for certain parts of the country and mine might be the rule for other locations.
Bingo. Indeed had she gone to school 15-20 miles away her experiences probably would have been quite different. East Palo Alto isn't so much another world from the Blossom Valley/Almaden area of San Jose, but a whole 'nother universe.
As I have said before race trumps character and pride trumps humility. This is the new paradigm being taught to our generation.
Perhaps I am simply more hopeful than you, I believe that character trumps race and humility trumps pride. That the new paradigm being taught to they younger generation isn't necessarily being learned by them.
How, um, nice for you...
Ya THINK?!?!??
If there is any justice, there is a special lower circle of Hell for the leftists who do this.
Her graduating class was represented by the world. The best of the best from America, India, Pakistan, The Philippines, Vietnam, China, Japan, The middle east, Europe, Mexico, and God knows where else.
I think the two big things that contributed to everyone getting along were that no group had anything approaching a majority, and they all came from working class families.
It’s not a race issue. It’s a culture issue. Unfortunately at this time in our country’s history, large portions of some races have cultural problems, and our leftists and freedom haters do all they can to perpetuate the situation.
Are you seriously a FREEPER? I don’t believe that you are a good one. You do not allow for serious conversation on Homeschooling. It is sad that you even spew your nonsense. I feel sorry for you.
“blacks have free will.”
Your right, but remember its always easier to blame someone else for your problems. Black america has found the scapegoat in blaming whites. The media reinforces this by claiming that racism is only by whites against blacks, the leftist have destroyed their families with absent fathers and thier rap role models, etc.... Sure black America is to blame but I also blame RINOs for continually race baiting politics. Huckabee and Brownback (and Bush) are two of the worst kind (if you saw the GOP PBS debate you would understand what I mean).
The KKK is gone but it has been replaced with NAACP.
We are in complete agreement on this. :)
“That the new paradigm being taught to the younger generation isn’t necessarily being learned by them.”
Please dont take this wrong, but your out of your mind. The diversity doctrine that, minorities are taught that race comes before allegiance to America is well established and in place. How can you even debate this point? Blacks vote 90%+ democrat!!!! This is not happenchance this is due to the fact that they have allegiance to a party which appeases race based policies.
We live in a hyphenated country (except if your white). Kids are taught to be prideful about their race and to hate whites. It is obvious that we dont see eye to eye on this. I need to post the picture of the Azatlan school being created in my town, and financed by a major bank.
What is so frustrating is when it is so obvious that we are becoming more and more divided by race that we still have people who claim that everything is all well and good and that they are in perfect harmony in their multicultural neighborhood. Happy as a clam eventhough LaRaza, NAACP and every other racist organization is out there demanding America pay for reparations, be given back to Mexico or provide freebies in the way of welfare.
A white kid in an inner city mostly black school is NOT going to experience what your daughter experienced. He will have to fight for his life on an every day basis. As others have already explained, how he survives (acting gay, crazy, or play like he's black) takes many forms but this is the new America.
thanks for clarifying....i’ve followed your posts a long time and I’m glad to see that
indeed...even Bush turned out to be a good works enabler to a degree
sad.
*sigh* Yeah. I've found the secret to happiness:
It's having someone else to blame.
Probably.
A white kid in an inner city mostly black school is NOT going to experience what your daughter experienced. He will have to fight for his life on an every day basis.
Probably. All I'm saying is that it isn't a universal experience, there is hope for the America that isn't inner city.
Sadly,nowadays you are probably right but not for the reasons you might think.
A 90% black school would most likely be one with relatively low academic standards and toleration of ghetto cultural norms which to me are bad for ANY child.
The safety issue is there too but don’t be too quick to assume that a white kid going to a school like that is going to get his butt whipped every day because thats not necessarily so.The deciding factor is his or her ability to assimilate into ghetto lifestyles.If he is”down”then he will be deemed as “cool”and a “white nigga” and not messed with.
Same as a black kid in an almost all white school.If he is always bitching about”white devils”and isolating himself culturally the other white kids will mess with him.Yet if he likes alternative rock and skateboards,the other white kids will see him as”not really black”and he will have few problems.
No doubt you speak the truth and all that madness happened.
I guess what colors my opinion is my rather rough treatment I had from other white kids growing up.The beatdowns,the extorting of money in restrooms,the cruel taunts,etc.And then these same white thugs making comments like”watch out for niggers.They will kick your ass”.My first thought was,”hell,niggers couldn’t be any worse than YOU guys”
Then as I got older and began working in these urban schools and the pattern I saw was very strange.I saw that dark skinned blacks didn’t like light skinned blacks and vice versa.I noticed that black kids were very cruel to anyone different and that mirrored my experience with white kids growing up.
One major diference between black kids in 1970 and now-back then I got called”honky”,white bastard”and constantly asked”Mister,is you prejudiced?”,etc.Now you almost never hear insults like that in a classroom.Something has changed and I don’t know why exactly but I think it has something to do with the thug culture that glorifies black on black violence but pretty much ignores Whitey.
Just my crazy theory.
those all sound like perfectly good reasons not to send a white kid to black school if one can afford otherwise
i was in public school in jackson miss from 1962-1971 and attended when we had blacks there under freedom of choice schools where you could basically go wherever you wanted
my school was maybe 3% black...some social pioneers sent there kids there....nobody messed with them....nothing....some were star athletes and had that respect
later after forced busing, it got much worse and my school became 70% black and it was on...
today my hometown public schools are I think around 90% black...maybe more
i have two employees for me here who went to mostly black schools all their life as white guys....they had to fight like lions but they are not wiggers
around here one finds more wiggers at mostly white schools rather than the other way around
in jackson miss, wiggers are still low volume....stakes are too high there....a ground zero environment
i’m going to ping someone who has more recent experience in mostly black public schools
i’d like to get his take if he has time
I didn’t know you were from Jackson.I would guess that the cultural mores are quite different than the ones out here in California.
One big difference is you don’t have the large Mexican and Asian population that we do out here.It is still hard for me to get used to hearing kids with names like Roberto Diaz and Xiang Thach saying,”Wassup,my,nigga?Whats crackin’,dawg?”
A real cultural disconnect!
It has been my experience.
The rural and small town public schools
all fair pretty well in the “get along” process
and in the “education” process. It’s the big cities
like Jackson and all the schools in the MS Delta
that have problems on every front.
My Grandson is in the first grade at a K through 7 rural
Yazoo County School that has been a Level 5
(Best of the Best) School for the last 4 years.
There has never been a race problem or any major
problem. In fact people transport their children
(black and white) from outside the district just
to get them to that school. They “live” with grandparents
uncles anuts cousins and imaginary people JUST to go
to that school.
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