Despite 26 security cameras, officials could not say how an armed, suspended 14-year-old student was able to get into his downtown school a day earlier and shoot two students and two teachers before killing himself.
School officials also were investigating how a number of warning signs from the troubled student, including threats made last week, apparently went unheeded.
Police were checking surveillance video on Thursday for clues as to how Asa Coon, armed with two revolvers, was able to enter the SuccessTech Academy alternative school.
PHOTO: AP
Coon was a new student at the school, but the district has a dossier on past problems. He had mental health problems, spent time in two juvenile facilities and was suspended from school last year for attempting to harm a student, juvenile court records show.
Coon had been suspended for a fight on Monday, but students said officials had done nothing about threats he had made last week to blow up the school and stab students.
"I told my friends in the class that he had a gun and stuff," Rasheem Smith, 15, said on Thursday on CBS's Early Show. "We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen."
Responding on the show, schools chief executive Eugene Sanders said the district would investigate.
The school of about 240 students has metal detectors, but none were operating on Wednesday. Students said the devices were used only intermittently.
When asked how Coon got past an armed security guard or whether warnings signs were missed, Police Chief Michael McGrath said he could not comment. He said police consult with school officials on where to locate metal detectors, based in part on crime in schools.
Charles Blackwell, president of SuccessTech's student-parent organization, said the position of a second security guard had been eliminated because of lack of money.
Wearing black clothing, black-painted fingernails and a T-shirt of Marilyn Manson -- the shock rocker he said he chose to worship instead of God -- Coon fired as students ran screaming or hid under tables or in closets. Then the freshman shot himself behind his right ear with a .38 caliber shot shell loaded with pellets.
Near Coon's body, police found the two guns -- .22- and .38 caliber revolvers -- and a box of ammunition for each, as well as three folding knives, McGrath said.
McGrath said that since last year, police had gone to the family's home five times: for calls about domestic violence, an assault call, a property crime and a hit-and-run accident.
Asa Coon, who is white, stood out in a school that is 85 percent black for wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar, chains and a glove. No one has suggested race played a role in the attack.
Coon was the subject of a juvenile court neglect case at age four, came from a poor home and routinely showed up to school unkempt.
When he was 12, Coon was charged in juvenile court with domestic violence, accused of attacking his mother.
His probation officer described the relationship between Coon and his mother as extremely poor, with both using foul and abusive language toward each other.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese