St. Louis School Gunman Had Assault Rifle, 600+ Rounds Of Ammo, Police Say
The gunman who killed two people and wounded seven others at a St. Louis high school on Oct. 24 was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and more than 600 rounds of ammunition, St. Louis police said on Tuesday (Oct. 25).
Speaking to reporters, St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack said the accused shooter, Orlando Harris, 19, who graduated last year from Central Visual and Performing Arts High School where the shooting took place, had ammo strapped to his chest and in a bag, as well as additional magazines in stairwells. “This could have been much worse,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
The gunman left a handwritten note that said he was lonely, having no friends, family or girlfriend, Sack said. He described his isolation in the note as the “perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
In the rampage, the assailant gunned down 10th-grader Alexzandria Bell, 15, and physical education teacher Jean Kuczka, 61, before the police killed him in a shootout.
“Alexzandria was my everything. She was joyful, wonderful and just a great person,” her father, Andre Bell, told KSDK, noting that Alexzandria was on the school’s junior varsity dance team.
“She was the girl I loved to see and loved to hear from. No matter how I felt, I could always talk to her and it was alright. That was my baby,” he added.
Kuczka’s daughter, Abby Kuczka, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the gunman fatally shot her mother when she stepped between him and her students after he burst into her classroom.
“My mom loved kids,” Abbey Kuczka stated. “She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom.”
Sack told reporters Tuesday that the seven injured students are all 15 or 16 years old and were in stable condition. Four of them were grazed by bullets or suffered gunshot wounds, two had bruises and one had a broken ankle after jumping out the building.
The shooting was reported just after 9 a.m. Police say that there were seven security workers on site. It wasn’t immediately clear how the shooter got inside the building, as the doors were reportedly locked. The building also has metal detectors.
A police timeline indicated that authorities received the active shooter call around 9:11 a.m., according to CNN. The police found the gunman and began “engaging him in a gunfight” at 9:23 a.m., Sack told reporters. The assailant was reported down two minutes later.
