Cops: Ammo, manifesto seized in school shooting suspect home

By Nicholas K. Geranios / Associated Press

SPOKANE — Guns, ammunition, a Molotov cocktail and a school yearbook with pictures of faces marked with X’s were seized by police from the home of a high school sophomore accused of fatally shooting a classmate and wounding three other students, according to court documents filed in the case.

Investigators last week also found a “manifesto” in the home of 15-year-old Caleb Sharpe, said the documents made public Friday that emerged in the media Monday as students returned to Freeman High School for the first time since last week’s shooting.

The documents did not provide details about what was written in the manifesto discovered in a notebook. Another notebook had a list of chemicals. The Molotov cocktail was described as a “practice” incendiary device but the documents provided no more details.

The school near the small town of Rockford near Washington’s border with Idaho was closed Thursday and Friday after authorities said Sharpe brought a handgun and an assault rifle to school Wednesday in a duffel bag he had carried onto his high school bus.

The assault rifle jammed when he tried to load it inside the school and he pulled out a pistol and shot the 15-year-old classmate in the abdomen and in the face, the documents said.

The teen then walked down a hallway, firing at or into the ceiling and wounding three female students, authorities have said. Sharpe told police that he had been bullied by the boy who died but did not target him specifically.

Some students walked arm-in-arm as they showed up for their classes on Monday.

There was a counselor present in every classroom and retired teachers also showed up to offer support and help. Many parents accompanied their children to school at the urging of Randy Russell, the school district’s superintendent.

The Spokesman-Review newspaper reported over the weekend that Sharpe had been suspended for bringing threatening notes to school and that the shooting happened on the first day he had returned.

Russell told the newspaper that the district followed protocol by suspending the student and sending him for a mental evaluation.

Sharpe faces a charge of first-degree murder, and might be tried as an adult.

Documents and his classmates said Sharpe brought notes to school about doing “something stupid,” was obsessed with past school shootings and posted videos online that showed him playing with guns.

Sharpe also had been meeting with a school counselor because of suicidal thoughts and left a suicide note at home for his parents before the shooting, an investigator for the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office wrote in an affidavit.

Sharpe has been in custody since the shootings and faces a Sept. 26 court appearance.

His family last week issued a statement expressing condolences and asking for prayers for the victims and their relatives.

The Associated Press doesn’t typically name juvenile suspects but is doing so because of the severity of the accusations and because Sharpe’s name was released in public documents.