Remembering The Red Lake High School shooting: Red Lake, Minnesota 2005

Date: March 21

Year: 2005

School: Red Lake Senior High

Location: Red Lake

State: Minnesota

Wounded: 5

Fatalities: 9 (2 home, 7 school)

Shots Fired: 45 (+13 at home)

Time lapsed: 9 minutes

Police response time: 3 minutes (4 minute shootout with police)

How ended: suicide

Civilians involved: No, an unarmed security guard at the school confronted him, but he was killed.

Perpetrator: Jeffrey Weise

Age: 16

Family history: His father committed suicide on July 27, 1997 after a standoff with police. Mother sustained severe brain injury in an alcohol related car accident on March 5, 1999 and had to be placed in an assisted living home. His grandmother was granted custody but she died in 2003. In postings on a National Socialism forum he says he wants to be a Nazi to preserve his Native heritage, he laments the damage done by drugs and alcohol to the native people. His parents both had alcohol issues.

Red flags: Records of his troubles begin sometime after his grandmother passed away in 2003. After his grandmothers death he developed a strong online presence through several websites and forums. In March of 2004 he began posting on a Nationalist forms praising Hitler. In 2005 he claimed a threat was called into his school on 4/20 the Columbine anniversary and that he was blamed for it because he dressed goth, listened to industrial music, and said even his friends noted how closely he fit the typical school shooter profile from Columbine. His personalities online shift from sensitive soul talking of bettering his life to giving up on humanity and life in general. Even when he acts tough, a great deal of pain is visible throughout.
Jeff also made violent animations online, in "Target Practice" an assailant shoots random people, then throws a grenade at a police car before committing suicide. Students were well aware of Jeff's dark side, he often drew graphic depictions of violence and showed them to other students. He tried to recruit multiple kids to commit the shooting with him and at least a dozen other students were said to have known but none got involved, only one was charged. (https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/Jeffrey%20Weise%20Online.pdf)

Mental illness history: History of depression and suicidal ideations. May of 2004 he attempted suicide, then in June of 2004 he was hospitalized for another suicide attempt. They held him for 72 hours and released him on antidepressants.  

Drug or medication use: He was placed on Prozac in June of 2004 and remained on Prozac until the shooting.

Inspiration: Weise appeared to be trying to recreate Columbine. Favorite movies included Zero Day and Elephant, both loosely based on events at Columbine. Friends reported he would watch Elephant with them, but skip the boring part and go straight to the shooting.
He started exploring Nazi themes. He claimed to dress goth like the kids at Columbine, though there is no evidence the Columbine shooters ever dressed "goth," or fit any of the stereotypes Weise mentions. Almost as if he is trying to fit into his own idea of the typical shooter. Music listed as Korn, Marilyn Manson, and Rammstein but also included Nirvana and John Lennon. There is no indication of the superiority that the Columbine shooters demonstrated, as much as the appearance of someone trying to find a way to feel superior. As if the loss of his parents had left him feeling powerless and hopeless, but the events at Columbine represented a reclaiming of the power lost. His mother's car accident when he was 11 must have been a tremendous blow just 20 months after the loss of his father. Occurring on March 5, 1999, this life changing event would have happened just 45 days before the massacre at Columbine. 

Possible motive: Depression and bullying. Had not attended the school for two years. He had many friends and admitted this, but he identified as a loner even within his own group. He felt separate from the world and seemed to exhibit some bipolar type behaviors as he goes back and forth between hopefulness and deep despair. Targets were random.
At his home, the crime scene was grim. He had shot his grandfather's girlfriend twice in the head, killing her quickly. His grandfather was found in bed, with two gunshots to the head and ten to the chest. There is no record of why he might have been so angry at his grandfather. A semi automatic police weapon (unspecified model) was found at the scene. Weiss had tried to load it with a 30 round clip and it had jammed so he'd left it behind.

Weapons:
Ruger MK II .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol (used to kill grandfather)
.40 caliber Glock 23 semi-automatic pistol
Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun

Weapons obtained: Unknown how he obtained the Ruger pistol, but he may have had it at least a year. He used the .22 to kill his grandfather who was a tribal police officer and his grandfathers girlfriend, then took grandfather's body armor and police cruiser and went to the school. 

Training: Unclear

Aftermath: Unlike most shootings this one happened on a reservation where the locals had much more control over the media circus that usually descends. The tribe did not encourage the non stop coverage that usually follows such a tragedy, and shortly after the shooting the tribe asked the media to leave and allow the community to heal. It has been noted that the Red Lake shooting did not receive as much coverage as most mass shootings do, but Weise was not allowed to become a hero or a martyr. http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/26/nation/na-redlake26

Both the security guard and the injured student who tried to stab Weise with a pencil in an attempt to stop him were hailed as heroes.

The school had already installed metal detectors just before the attack at Columbine, but neither the metal detector nor unarmed security did anything to deter Weise.

One FBI officer assigned to the investigation lost two friends in the shooting. He says that Red Lake convinced him that we need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines or at the very least restrict their availability through the National Firearms Act as Class III ATF as regulated destructive devices, requiring yearly federal licensing.

He also stresses that an armed security officer could have stopped Weisse in his tracks instead of just delaying him. In this shooting, a security officer gave his life but that first gunshot was what allowed teachers and safe to get as many kids to safety as possible.

"As Jeff Weise walked down the hallways of the Red Lake High School four weeks ago, he repeatedly tried to open classroom doors, only to find that those doors had been locked," Heffelfinger said. "The immediate action of Red Lake staff and teachers to lock the doors, to herd the students into safe rooms, and to evacuate the students when the school became (safe), undoubtedly saved lives."

U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger

Resulting actions: Native reservations are often forgotten places, and Red Lake is no different. Media was rejected, interviews denied. The Red Lake shooting is often overlooked, though it was one of the deadliest for its time. At first, with all the attention came assistance, but within months residents were again left on their own to cope.

Ten years after the shooting, those affected looked back at the events of that day and the ripple effect the shooting has had on the entire community.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/03/18/red-lake-shooting-10-years

The Shooting: Shooter used a gun he had been hiding for some time to kill his grandfather, a tribal police officer, and then his grandfather's live in girlfriend. Shooter then took his grandfather's police issue weapons and body armor. Shooter then drover grandfathers police cruiser to the school and parked it at the front door. As he walked into the school he was confronted by unarmed security officer Derrick Brun, who was shot and killed. The other security officer escaped, and the shot alerted school staff to secure the classrooms.

He fired shots into an English classroom wounding 3 students, and killing 3 students and 1 teacher. He asked a student "If the believed in God," a question asked at Columbine as well. He was said to be smiling as he fired. Student Jeffrey May tried to stop the shooter, and as the wrestled he stabbed the shooter in the stomach with a pencil. May was shot in the neck, and jaw, his girlfriend was killed in the assault. Driven from the classroom he returned to the main entrance where he killed another 2 students, and injured 2 more. After a 4 minute shootout with police, shooter was injured in the stomach and right arm. He retreated into a classroom and shot himself.

Killed in the assault: 
Daryl Allen Lussier, age 58, Jeff Weise's grandfather, a tribal police officer.
Michelle Leigh Sigana, age 31, Lussier's girlfriend.
Derrick Brian Brun, age 28, Security Guard.
Neva Jane Wynkoop-Rogers, age 62, English Teacher.
Alicia Alberta White, age 14, student.
Thurlene Marie Stillday, age 15, student.
Chanelle Star Rosebear, age 15, student.
Chase Albert Lussier, age 15, student.
Dewayne Michael Lewis, age 15, student.

Conspiracy Theories: 

Sources: 
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/red-lake-massacre-took-3-minutes/