Police shoot armed teen in Spokane high school

Published 9:00 pm Monday, September 22, 2003

SPOKANE — A 17-year-old boy fired a handgun in a high school science classroom Monday, prompting his school’s evacuation before police shot and critically wounded him.

No one else was injured.

Police Chief Roger Bragdon said an officer shot the student at Lewis and Clark High School after the student pulled out a gun while police were negotiating with him.

The teen was in critical condition with life-threatening wounds, police said in a news release. The exact nature of the wounds was not revealed.

Police, the hospital and the Spokane School District all refused to release the boy’s name.

Police have no motive, Bragdon said.

"He was angry at everything. He was making threats about everything," Bragdon said, but noted the boy did not appear to be angry at anyone in particular. "We have no idea as to the motive."

Bragdon said the student entered a third-floor science classroom, armed with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, at about 11 a.m. and fired a shot into a wall, ordering the teacher and several students to leave. He took no hostages.

The boy also sprayed the room full of retardant from fire extinguishers, which made it hard to see, the chief said.

School officials triggered a fire alarm to evacuate nearly 2,000 students, plus faculty and staff, from the sprawling school adjacent to I-90 in downtown Spokane. The freeway was temporarily closed in both directions.

The first officers on the scene had the shooter contained inside the classroom by 11:24 a.m., 14 minutes after the first call, Bragdon said.

Negotiators talked with the boy for more than an hour, and SWAT officers surrounded the classroom, Bragdon said.

The boy had propped open the door with a file cabinet so he could talk with officers, police said.

At about 12:45 p.m., the boy abruptly stopped talking, put on his jacket, climbed onto the file cabinet and raised a handgun at officers, police said.

That left officers no choice but to shoot, Bragdon said.

The loud gunshot was heard outside the school. Then an ambulance pulled up to the front entrance and the student was carried out on a stretcher.

Bragdon said the student was shot by a SWAT officer.

Preliminary information indicated the gun came from the boy’s home, Bragdon said.

Evacuated students were bused to the Spokane Arena, several blocks from the campus, where their parents picked them up, school district spokeswoman Marybeth Smith said.

"The school district has practiced evacuation drills and it worked amazingly well," Bragdon said. "Almost 2,000 students were evacuated in a very short time."

Schools in Spokane do not have metal detectors, so any weapon being smuggled in would not be detected, schools superintendent Brian Benzel said. There are no plans to change that policy.

Chaz Tuetken, 14, said he and some other students were told during lunch to evacuate the building, but there was no immediate explanation why. Many milled under the nearby I-90 overpass until they were taken to the arena.

State Patrol troopers reopened the freeway around 1 p.m.

The incident ended so quickly because the first officers on the scene immediately entered the high school and went to the area where the student was holed up, Bragdon said.

The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., while law enforcement officers waited outside to assess the situation, has prompted police to make aggressive entries in such situations, he said.

Bragdon said deputies from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department were joining city police to investigate the shooting.

Benzel said he was impressed by the response from police, students and staff. "Everybody responded in a very quick and appropriate way."

Benzel said the school district and police had practiced for such an event.

School was expected to resume today, with special counselors present, Benzel said. Counselors from a district crisis team were to arrive at the campus Monday night to meet with any students and parents who wanted to talk, he said.

"We want to return school to normal as quick as possible," Benzel said.

Copyright ©2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.