RedLake Shooting

[Dine'Luvlee]

BEMIDJI, Minn. - A high school student went on a shooting rampage on an Indian reservation Monday, killing his grandparents at their home and then seven people at his school, grinning and waving as he fired, authorities and witnesses said. The suspect apparently killed himself after exchanging gunfire with police.


It was the nation’s worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre in 1999 that killed 13 people.

One student said her classmates pleaded with the gunman to stop shooting.

“You could hear a girl saying, ’No, Jeff, quit, quit. Leave me alone. What are you doing?” student Sondra Hegstrom told The Pioneer of Bemidji, using the name of the suspected shooter.


Before the shootings at Red Lake High School, the suspect’s grandparents were shot in their home and died later. There was no immediate indication of the gunman’s motive.

In addition to the shooter, the death toll at the school included five students, a teacher and a security guard, FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said in Minneapolis.

Fourteen to 15 other students were injured, McCabe said. Some were being cared for in Bemidji, about 20 miles south of Red Lake. Authorities closed roads to the reservation in far northern Minnesota while they investigated the shootings.

Hegstrom described the shooter grinning and waving at a student his gun was pointed at, then swiveling to shoot someone else. “I looked him in the eye and ran in the room, and that’s when I hid,” she told The Pioneer.

Two handguns, shotgun
McCabe declined to talk about a possible connection between the suspect and the couple killed at the home, but Red Lake Fire Director Roman Stately said they were the grandparents of the gunman. He identified the shooter’s grandfather as Daryl Lussier, a longtime officer with the Red Lake Police Department, and said Lussier’s guns may have been used in the shootings.

Stately said the shooter had two handguns and a shotgun.

“After he shot a security guard, he walked down the hallway shooting and went into a classroom where he shot a teacher and more students,” Stately told Minneapolis television station KARE.

Students and a teacher, Diane Schwanz, said the gunman tried to break down a door to get into her classroom.

“I just got on the floor and called the cops,” Schwanz told the Pioneer. “I was still just half-believing it.”<br>
Ashley Morrison, another student, had taken refuge in Schwanz’s classroom. With the shooter banging on the door, she dialed her mother on her cell phone. Her mother, Wendy Morrison, said she could hear gunshots on the line.

“’Mom, he’s trying to get in here and I’m scared,”’ Ashley Morrison told her mother, according to the newspaper.

All of the dead students were found in one room. One of them was a boy believed to be the shooter, McCabe said. He would not comment on reports that the boy shot himself and said it was too early to speculate on a motive.

Martha Thunder’s 15-year-old son, Cody, was being treated for a gunshot wound to the hip.

“He heard gunshots and the teacher said ’No, that’s the janitor’s doing something,’ and the next thing he knew, the kid walked in there and pointed the gun right at him,” Thunder said, standing outside the hospital in Bemidji.

School locked down
Police officers were posted at the hospital Monday night to discourage reporters from entering. When a reporter approached three men walking across a hospital parking lot, one broke down in tears, and the others said they had no comment.

The school was evacuated after the shootings and locked down for the investigation, McCabe said.

“It will probably take us throughout the night to really put the whole picture together,” he said.

Floyd Jourdain Jr., chairman of the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, called it “without a doubt the darkest hour” in the group’s history. “There has been a considerable amount of lives lost, and we still don’t know the total of that,” Jourdain said.

It was the nation’s worst school shooting since two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves on April 20, 1999.

The rampage in Red Lake was the second fatal school shooting in Minnesota in 18 months. Two students were killed at Rocori High School in Cold Spring in September 2003. Student John Jason McLaughlin, who was 15 at the time, awaits trial in the case.

Red Lake High School, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, has about 300 students, according to its Web site.

The reservation is about 240 miles north of the Twin Cities. It is home to the Red Lake Chippewa Tribe, one of the poorest in the state. According to the 2000 census, 5,162 people lived on the reservation, and all but 91 were Indians.

YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS?

[Dine'Luvlee]

I am speechless and saddened about this unbelievable incident. I cannot imagine what goes through a persons' mind when they are in such a rage that drives them to kill. To kill loved ones, friends, the innocent. What goes through the mind of a teenager in need of serious help? Are there signs of this type of rage?

This also brings fear upon many parents' and grandparents. The fear of an incident happening at their children's place of learning. The place we drop off our children to learn, to play, to make friends, to grow.

I do not know what else to say....It is all so depressing.

[Marks - the Earth's Sun]

Red Lake seeks better programs for kids
by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
April 28, 2005


Chris Jourdain, pictured with daughter Alicia on the shore of lower Red Lake, is on the Red Lake Boys and Girls Club board of directors. The club is gearing up to resume normal club activities following last month's shootings. (MPR photo/Tom Robertson)

Red Lake community members are talking about ways to improve the lives of kids on the reservation. Perhaps the most visible effort involves the Boys and Girls Club. Tribal and club officials hope the national Boys and Girls Clubs will provide funding to help Red Lake's club broaden its impact on kids.


Red Lake, Minn. — Tribal and club officials are in San Diego this week attending a national conference of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. They're hoping to come back with a financial commitment from the organization to help Red Lake's club broaden its offerings for kids.

In normal times, the Boys and Girls Club plays a big part in the lives of kids at Red Lake. Since the club opened four years ago, it's attracted more than 600 members.

Usually, about 150 teens participate in club activities each day. Dawn Huseby, executive director of the club, says it offers kids something to do in a place where there aren't many options.



Dawn Huseby

"There are no movie theaters, there are no roller skating rinks, there's no Burger King, there's no McDonald's, there's no recreation outlet resources for them to take advantage of," said Huseby. "That's part of our goal, is to bring back some of those options for the kids here."

These aren't normal times at Red Lake. Since the shootings in March, in which 10 people were killed, Huseby says the number of kids participating in the Boys and Girls Club has dwindled to just a handful.

"Compared to what we were offering, our numbers have dropped off significantly because of the tragedy that happened," said Huseby. "So we're trying to provide alternative programs for the kids here as much as we can, since we're not allowed to be back in the school right now."

The club doesn't have a building of its own. It's run out of a small office in the middle school. Since the shootings, the school and gymnasium have been off limits to the club because of security concerns.

Huseby says without a facility, club offerings in the past month have been sporadic. For awhile, the club moved into the Red Lake Community Center, but had to leave there to make room for other scheduled events.

As of this week, Boys and Girls Club programs at Red Lake have been temporarily suspended. Huseby says it's been frustrating for teens, especially since they're still only going to school on a half-day schedule.



Jodie Beaulieu

"We've had endless calls from kids. They call our staff, they call the office, and they're like, 'When is the club going to open back up? We want to get involved in different activities.'" says Huseby. "They get bored. They're out of school at noon and they need something structured to do. And there's kids begging for programs."

The lack of youth activities at Red Lake is only part of the story. People have known for years kids on the reservation are at risk. Poverty and unemployment is high. Student test scores are typically among the lowest in the state.

Last year, a state survey showed nearly half of ninth grade girls at Red Lake had attempted suicide. Nearly 40 percent of ninth grade boys said they'd been treated for alcohol or drug problems.

Nearly all adults on the reservation have been protective of kids since the shootings. Despite repeated requests, school administrators, Boys and Girls Club officials and parents didn't want students to talk for this story.

Many say the shootings at Red Lake were a wakeup call. Jodie Beaulieu, treasurer of the Boys and Girls Club, says historically the tribe hasn't done a good enough job meeting the needs of children.

"We've missed some kids. They've fallen through the cracks," says Beaulieu. "How are we going to reclaim these kids from a life that hasn't dealt them a fair shake? We have the capabilities of doing that. We can't go back to what people say was normal, because normal is what caused what happened."

We missed some kids. They've fallen through the cracks. How are we going to reclaim these kids from a life that hasn't dealt them a fair shake? We have the capabilities of doing that.
- Jodie Beaulieu

Beaulieu says the Boys and Girls Club budget has been tight. But since the shootings, the club has received donations from across the country. Beaulieu says she hopes the national spotlight on Red Lake will allow the club to expand.

"I would really like to sometime soon, like real soon, see some tangible changes," said Beaulieu. "We say our youth are our most important resource. We need to see evidence in our community."

Some hope that evidence will come as soon as next week, when club officials expect to move back into space provided by the school.

After the shootings, the national Boys and Girls Clubs organization gave an extra $100,000 to the Red Lake club's operating budget. Club director Dawn Huseby says that will allow her to hire more people, provide more activities, and purchase some equipment.

The club has strong support from the tribal government. Chairman Buck Jourdain serves on the board of directors. Jourdain and Huseby are attending the Boys and Girls Clubs conference in San Diego this week. Huseby says she hopes the trip will result in additional funding to help build a facility the kids can call their own.

"I think the opportunities are endless right now," Huseby said. "It's not like they weren't before March 21, because... that was a part of our plan was to put up our own building, our own facility. But now the window of opportunity is there."

Last month's tragedy has some tribal members thinking about how to solve Red Lake's deeper social problems. Chris Jourdain is a member of the Boys and Girls Club's board of directors, as well as a small business owner. Jourdain says poverty is one of the biggest obstacles for kids. He encourages more people to become entrepreneurs, and says tribal members have to stand up and start creating their own opportunities.

"(There is) third generation welfare right now on our reservation, which means your grandma was on welfare, your mama was on welfare, now you're on welfare," said Jourdain. "So what are your kids going to be on, you know?"

Jourdain works as a counselor at the elementary and middle schools. He says there are discipline problems within the schools that are the result of family problems at home. Jourdain worries about what he calls an epidemic of crack cocaine use on the reservation.

"I've got little kids coming up to me, telling me that they wish their parents wouldn't smoke that white stuff, because it makes them go crazy," said Jourdain. "And who's really getting hurt is the kids. But see, there's not a lot of money up here to begin with, but what little people have, a lot of it's being spent on that stuff."

Jourdain says he doesn't recall a more horrible event on the reservation than what happened at the high school last month. But he expects something good will come of it.

"The direction we were going, you know, maybe it wasn't the right direction," he said. "So it took a major event like that ... a big slap in the face, to say, 'Hey, wake up. Where are we going to go? How are we going to get there?'"

Leaders at Red Lake admit they have a window of opportunity they have to take advantage of. Tribal officials went to Washington recently with a wish list of projects, including a new wastewater treatment plant and a new law enforcement center; the tribal police department now works out of a building that's been condemned.

Tribal officials say most of their needs involve federal programs that have been underfunded for years. They say if the federal government provided adequate funding, it would free up tribal resources to provide more services for kids.

[Marks - the Earth's Sun]

I hope that we can all believe in hope and that this community heals...

[Marks - the Earth's Sun]

Red Lake tribe preparing to keep kids busy this summer
by Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public Radio
May 9, 2005


Red Lake Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain speaks to a group of youth program directors about plans for summer activities for kids on the reservation. Jourdain says the tribe continues to receive offers of financial help. (MPR photo/Tom Robertson)

Young people on the Red Lake Indian Reservation sometimes complain there's little for them to do once school gets out. This summer, the Red Lake School District has no plans to offer summer school. But there may be plenty of other activities to keep kids busy. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial help are flowing onto the reservation for summer youth programs. Tribal leaders are now planning ways to use those resources.


Red Lake, Minn. — Since the March 21 shootings at Red Lake, there's been lots of talk about how to improve the lives of kids. Now some tribal leaders are calling this the summer of youth at Red Lake. There are lots of things in the works, including summer camps, canoe trips and sporting opportunities. Tribal Chairman Buck Jourdain says it will be far from a typical summer at Red Lake.

"In the past, I think that the programming that we have had on the reservation has not been adequate enough," said Jourdain. "It's been effective in spots and we've been sort of fragmented. And I think with all of the additional resource that we're getting it's an absolute must today that we map out what's going to take place over this crucial summer."

Recently, Red Lake officials met with tribal youth advocates and state and federal agency representatives to coordinate the effort. Federal Administration for Native Americans representative Robert Parisian told the group the agency is developing an aid package of more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Some of that money will help villages on the reservation repair or alter local community centers to make them more usable for kids programs. Parisian says the package will also include truck loads of donated sporting goods equipment.

"The gamut runs from, everything from basketball, weight equipment, uniforms, pitching machines, golf equipment, boats, whatever you can think of from major sporting companies," Parisian said. "And all of that is going to be shipped into Red lake to be put into the community centers."

Parisian says the Administration for Native Americans will provide emergency response and first aid training this summer for high school students. And there are plans to bring in more than 20 volunteers from several American Indian tribes through a program called the Tribal Community Conservation Corp. Those volunteers will serve as mentors and help with summer activities.

This is a united tribal effort, especially this summer. There's never been a time when we've needed to pull together more than now.
- Judy Roy

Red Lake Tribal Secretary Judy Roy says some private foundations have offered money to hire two people to coordinate summer programs for kids. The idea is to pull together all summer activities into a single, well- publicized calendar.

Roy says that's something that hasn't happened before. She says in the past, the tribe has been criticized for only including kids who are in so-called prominent reservation families. Roy says summer programs for kids have been scattered and inconsistent.

"That has to all be set aside because all of our youth deserve whatever the tribe can do for them," said Roy. "And so that is my pitch, that we put aside our territorial feelings and say this is a united tribal effort, especially this summer. There's never been a time when we've needed to pull together more than now."

Some tribal officials want more than just activities to merely entertain kids. There are plans to hire coordinators who will focus on healing and trauma counseling. There are two youth conferences being planned that will provide leadership training for young people. And there's talk of creating a Tribal Youth Council.

Tribal Treasurer Darrell Seki says he's pleased there will be so many new opportunities for kids this summer. But Seki says kids will need more than that to heal from the trauma of the shootings.

"We cannot forget to love our kids, to listen to them, to use our eyes, to hug them," Seki said. "All these things we're going to create, we still got things we've got to do. It doesn't have to be your kids. Maybe your neighbor's. So we need to pool our resources and let's do it."

Tribal officials are still waiting on word of possible funding for a Boys and Girls Club building on the reservation. The club now operates out of a small office in the middle school. The national Boys and Girls Club of America organization has committed to helping the tribe come up with $4 million for the project.

[Marks - the Earth's Sun]

Wish I was apart of all this.... Right Blaze?