Minnesota School Shooter Wore Bullet-Proof Vest

[truthpusher]

Minnesota School Shooter Wore Bullet-Proof Vest
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Tue Mar 22, 2005 04:33 PM ET
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BEMIDJI, Minn. (Reuters) - A 16-year-old boy who killed nine people and then himself on a Minnesota Indian reservation was wearing a bullet-proof vest when he chased a teacher and fellow students into a classroom and gunned them down, the FBI said on Tuesday.

Monday's rampage by Jeff Weise -- the worst U.S. school shooting since the 15-death Columbine massacre in 1999 -- appeared to have been planned, investigators said. The spree left seven wounded, five of whom were still being treated in hospitals.

FBI agent Michael Tabman refused to speculate on a motive. He said he had no information on a report the high school student had revealed neo-Nazi sentiments in Internet postings.

Weise, who earlier reports mistakenly said was 17, identified himself as an "angel of death" and a "NativeNazi" in the online material, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on Tuesday.

complete story: http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7976585

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. This will sadden the gun nuts since I am sure they thought if everyone

else had a gun this wouldn't have happened. I personally think if everyone else had a bullet proof vest, this wouldn't have happened.

[PaganPreacher]

4. Killed his grandfather, took weapons and vest.

The grandfather was a tribal police officer. The weapons and body armor were government-issued.

This was not a reflection on the ownership of firearms by private citizens, either pro- or anti-.

It's just sad.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[Toots]

7. If not ownership..ability to obtain

Guns are easy to obtain and easy to kill and maim with. I guess the solution is to have more of them ..bigger and badder..hell why not some artillery, sure make hunting easier, fishing too. :shrug:

[PaganPreacher]

19. "Easy to obtain"... kill your grandfather and steal them.

Maybe the solution is to outlaw grandfathers on reservations.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[NickB79]

21. The kid obtained the gun from his grandfather, a police officer

Are you suggesting we make it harder for police officers to obtain firearms?

[AirAmFan]

11. "Violence on a reservation"--that's how Peter Jennings just REFRAMED

this school shooting on ABC News.

Gun nuts certainly won't object to this blaming-the-victims approach. I guess if school shootings don't take place in upscale suburbs, they just become part of generic "violence among those people."

[jwirr]

17. I am living on a reservation in Northern Minnesota

and this shooting was just like any other shooting in any other area. A young boy, who is extremely mixed up, used violence to try to solve his problems. What I am trying to say is that this is not an issue of race, poverty, or local. It could have happened anywhere.

[Mairead]

12. Perhaps then it would have been a petrol bomb, or dynamite.

Non-psychotic people who need to be violent don't fetishise their tools. They use what they have. They're in it for the violence, not tool-use.

[AirAmFan]

13. Tsk Tsk--"people who need to be violent"--

as opposed to people who "need" unfettered access to unlimited firepower in weapons?

I guess this poor teenage nutcase just couldn't master the art of threatening and intimidating people with gun talk, the way many NRA members do. He actually used the things to kill people. Maybe the solution is more gun education--you know, Gun Intimidation 101. <end sarcasm>

[Mairead]

23. Sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to say (nt)

[slackmaster]

25. Body armor is useless against head shots

Aim for the head!

[MnFats]

2. unfortunately there are lots of guns in the hands of children...

...on the Red Lake reservation.
....I'd like to know if the boy's grandfather (whom he shot, along with the grandfather's companion) had his guns locked up. The boy stole a .40-cal pistol and a shotgun from the grandfather's home. Since the grandfather was also a reservation police officer, i presume that's where he got the vest, too.

[Wickerman]

6. He took everything from GF - the drove GF's cruiser ot the school

pretty fucked up.

[xray s]

3. this country is having a nervous breakdown

Bush is pushing the US over the edge.

[hollowdweller]

8. Really! I agree. I think it has to do with a gov't that keeps talking

About "life" if it's a fetus or a brain dead person, but if you are a worker laid off or exploited, a whistle blower fired, a person without health insurance or "collateral damage" in one of our many conquests you don't mean anything. I think rather than a culture of life, we have a culture where the individual is just valued for their ability to produce and are treated without dignity.

[Autobot77]

22. I don't believe its a sign of anything

I agree Bush is wrecking the country, but I don't think this incident is a sign of it. Read "The Culture of Fear" by Michael Glassner, he uses school shootings as an example. According to Glassner, the youth homicide rate has dropped by as much as 30 percent in recent years and up to 3 times as many people are struck dead by lightening than die by school violence. However, since newsmagazines cover these events 24/7, and they are used by advocacy groups to further thier agenda, you get the impession that it happens all the time; it dosen't.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Okay, what part of this picture doesn't make sense?

You wear a bullet proof vest so you can suicide yourself? I guess he didn't want anyone else to do the job for him?

[oldcoot]

26. That is strange

Perhaps he did not originally plan on committing suicide, but realized he might get into a lot of trouble if he was caught.

[Rex]

9. He wore a bullet proof vest and committed suicide?

What was the point of the vest?

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. The whole thing was pure evil done by a sociopath

It was mistake that that one had ever been born. What a tragic mess.

[scarletwoman]

14. A "mistake" that he had been born?!?! What a shameful thing to say!

This poor lost soul wasn't BORN lost, life had done a major number on this kid. His dad committed suicide when he was 8 years old. His mother was brain-damaged in a car accident 2 years later, and was confined to a nursing home. The boy was shuffled around, in and out of psychological treatment, on and off medication.

He fell through the cracks, got sucked into darkness. But to say that he should have never been born? Who are you to judge? Whatever mistakes there were, they came LONG after his birth.

sw

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. His circumstances were a recipe for that kind of behavior?

Then we all ought to be wearing bulletproof vests, because there are a hell of a lot of people in his shoes.

[anitar1]

16. Link for family history, please n/t

[dflprincess]

18. Here's a link to the Minneapolis Star Tribune website

I believe they covered the family history in their articles today:

http://www.startribune.com

I agree with the above poster, this child fell through the cracks. According to the local coverage there was a lot of signs that something was going horribly wrong, but no one did anything. How many times are we going to have hear this story before we learn to take the symptoms seriously?

[NYC]

20. His father committed suicide with police involvement.

...His father, Daryl Lussier Jr...committed suicide in July 1997 following a police standoff that lasted for more than a day... Not even Lussier's father, Red Lake officer Daryl Lussier, could negotiate a peaceful ending...

[lebkuchen]

24. Doesn't everyone in MN since the new gun "laws" took affect?

If not, they will now.