School Shootings Stun Reservation

Headnote

Minn. student's attacks end in 10 deaths, leave unanswered questions

Educators and families on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota were picking up the pieces last week after a deeply troubled 16-year-old student shot and killed seven other people and himself at a high school March 21.

The nation's deadliest school attack since the 1999 slayings at Colorado's suburban Columbine High School took place on an isolated reservation that spreads across 564,426 acres of woodland just south of the Canadian border.

Red Lake High School, its windows shattered and walls pocked with bullet holes, likely will not reopen for months, local officials said. Students at the 355-student school were expected to be taught this week in community centers on the reservation. Red Lake's elementary and middle schools were also scheduled to resume classes.

Stuart Desjarlait, the superintendent of the Red Lake school district, said at a March 24 press conference at North County Regional Hospital in Bemidji, Minn., that the high school has a crisis-management plan and had conducted drills. It also has a metal detector and security guards. But no one can guarantee 100 percent safety, 100 percent of the time, he added.

"We did everything we could," the superintendent said. "It goes to show that if something's going to happen, it's going to happen. No matter what you do, no matter who you are, no matter what precautions you take, something like this can happen."

Jeff Weise, brandishing several guns and supplied with multiple rounds of ammunition, burst through the school's front door after shooting and killing one of the school's two unarmed security guards. Within 10 minutes, he had shot and killed five students and a teacher, then turned a gun on himself. At least seven other people were injured, two of whom were in critical condition last week in a Bemidji hospital.

Before arriving at the school, Mr. Weise shot and killed his grandfather, Daryl Allen Lussier, 58, and Mr. Lussier's companion, Michelle Leigh Sigana, 32.

Red Lake is a "closed" reservation, subject to federal but not state laws. The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians runs its own police force and court system and sets policy on who can live on or visit the reservation.

The staunchly independent...