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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS