School Shooter Stains Central: V.P.A.

Shooting at St. Louis Arts High School

This past Monday, at approximately o9:11a., a call was made to the police of the Central: V.P.A. (Visual & Performing Arts) Campus being targeted by a shooter. According to an NBC report, two people lost their lives, a student (Alexandria Bell) & a teacher (Ms. Jean Kuczka), and six others were injured. 19y.o. Orlando Harris is the gunmen, as identified by the local police authority, a '21 graduate of the same school. In a note left in the shooter's car, he wrote, "I don’t have any friends; I don’t have any family. I’ve never had a girlfriend; I've never had a social life. I've been an isolated loner my entire life. This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter". In his car was also a map of the school, indicating he planned the attack. Harris entered the school with over a dozen high-capacity magazines holding 30 rounds each, as written in the St. Louis Business Journal. In a press conference Tuesday, Lt. Col. Michael Sack said, "We're not going to get into how [the shooter] got in[side of the school]. You can understand that we want to try to make schools a hard target", deflecting concerns from media regarding school safety. "If someone has a will, they're going to figure it out", Lt. Col. Sacks further said of the gunman entering the school. He also confirmed a raid of the suspect's family home on Pennsylvania Ave. was conducted as well. When later asked about gun safety in St. Louis, the Lt. claimed, "The gun laws in MO are very broad... there's really nothing we can do; if someone walks down the street with a rifle, you know, we've got no cause to go and talk to them."

A statement that was given by a student of the late Ms. Kuczka, Alex Macias, mentioned that despite the teacher locking the classroom door, the shooter "was still able to get in".

Alexandria Bell's father, Andre Bell, said his daughter, a Central: VPA varsity team dancer, was a "joyful, wonderful, & just great person to be around", in an interview with Channel 5. She was just about to age to 16yrs. Ms. Kuczka's former student, MO Representative LaKeySha Bosley, told local media, "She was a great teacher... she never gave up on me." Ms. Kuczka taught with the school since 2008 and was a joy to her students and others who attended the school without even taking her course.

Further updates regarding this story will be added as released.

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Sources:

• ksdk.com

• bizjournals.com