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Jeff Weise

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Jeff Weise
Born
Jeffrey James Weise

August 8, 1988
Minneapolis, Minnesota[1]
DiedMarch 21, 2005(2005-03-21) (aged 16)
Red Lake, Minnesota, United States
Cause of deathSelf-inflicted shotgun blast
Details
DateMarch 21, 2005
Location(s)Red Lake, Minnesota, United States
Target(s)Red Lake Senior High School
Killed9
Injured5
Weapons40. caliber Glock 23 pistol
Ruger 22. caliber pistol
Remington 12 gauge shotgun

Jeffrey James "Jeff" Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) was an Ojibwe Native American adolescent, and a student at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake, Minnesota. He murdered nine people and wounded five others in a shooting spree on March 21, 2005, in the Red Lake Indian Reservation located in northwest Minnesota. Weise first murdered his grandfather and grandfather's girlfriend at his trailer home in Red Lake, an unarmed security guard, a teacher and five students at Red Lake Senior High School. The shooting ended when Weise committed suicide.

Personal Life

Weise was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota,[1][2] the only child to 22-year-old Daryl Allen "Baby Dash" Lussier, Jr. and 18-year-old Joanne Weise, an unmarried Ojibwe couple from the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota. When he was three months old, his mother placed him in the care of his father whom resided in Red Lake.[2] He was reclaimed by his mother when he was three years old, and resided with his mother, stepfather Stuart Desjarlait, half-sister Daphne Desjarlait and half-brother Sebastian Desjarlait in a trailer home in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.[1][3][2][4] According to relatives, Joanne was a violent alcoholic and was physically and emotionall abusive towards her son.[2][3]

His father committed suicide via shotgun wound to the head in July 1997, after a day-long standoff with the Red Lake Police Department in Red Lake.[3][4] The senior Lussier had attmpted to intervene in the event, however failed to bring the standoff to a peaceful end.

In March 1999, Joanne Weise suffered severe brain damage in a car accident, in which a tractor-trailer struck her car on a highway in Minneapolis. She and a first cousin were drinking alcohol while driving,[3] and the accident resulted in the death of her cousin and Joanne having to be committed to a nursing home in Bloomington, Minnesota.[3][4] Due to the accident, Jeff was placed in the care of his paternal grandfather on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake. He expressed frustration with being forced to live on the reservation, and believed that his life was outside of his control.

His depression provoked a suicide attempt in May 2004, describing his experience in a post made on the website Above Top Secret:

I had went through a lot of things in my life that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take. I split the flesh on my wrist with a box opener, painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt. After sitting there for what seemed like hours (which apparently was only minutes), I had the revelation that this was not the path. It was my decision to seek medical treatment, as on the other hand I could have chose to sit there until enough blood drained from my downward lascerations on my wrists to die.

Weise eventually confessed to his grandfather regarding the suicide attempt, and was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Thief River Falls, Minnesota in June. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation at the hospital to determine whether he was suicidal, and was released only three days later.[5]

High school

Weise attended Ponemah Elementary School in nearby Ponemah for fifth grade, and later Red Lake Middle School in Red Lake for sixth grade to eighth grade.[5] Weise was forced to repeat the eighth grade due to failing grades, and was enrolled in a special education program at the school called Learning Center. Teacher Downwind Grant recalled, "[Weise] didn't function academically. He just sat there and drew pictures of army people with guns. He was a talented artist, but he drew terrible, terrible pictures."[5]

In August 2003, Weise enrolled at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake. He was remembered as withdrawn by teachers and fellow students, and reportedly had a history of troublesome behavior at school. However his social studies teacher Wanda Baxter recalled, "[Weise] was a good listener like any other ordinary student. He was quiet but never a troublemaker."[6] Another teacher described Weise as "a pretty bright kid, but was lazy when it came to school."[7] According to reports, Weise endured frequent bullying by fellow students due to his physical appearance and for regularly dressing in all-black clothing.[4] In spite of this, he usually did not respond to their taunts. It is not clear, however, how much he was really bullied. Jeffrey himself said, "Because of my size and appearance people don't give me as much trouble as they would if I looked weak."[8] In spite of any bullying, several students remember Weise as being non-violent.[3] Sophomore student Cartera Hart was a close friend of Weise, and described him as "the only one I talked to about my problems. He was trustworthy, and he was always capable of understanding what I was going through."[3] Although he has sometimes been described as a loner, several students have testified that he possessed a great deal of friends.[9] He was known to wear a black trench coat and black clothing to school all year round, and was labeled a "Goth kid" by fellow students.[10][11] He was also known to have a notebook into which he drew what has been described by friend Sky Grant as "evil and dark... stuff".[12]

During a school pep rally in March 2004, Weise extended his right arm upward and recited the Nazi salute while students were reciting the national anthem of the United States.[3] He was sent to a school counselor for the offense, in which he professed far-right leanings and his admiration for Adolf Hitler.[3] In April, the faculty at Red Lake Senior High School had been warned of someone threatening to "shoot up" the school on April 20; Hitler's birthday and the date the Columbine High School massacre occurred five years earlier.[4] Weise was a prime suspect in the threat, and was expelled from Red Lake Senior High School in October 2004. For the following five months, Weise was enrolled in a home-schooling program for children residing on the reservation.

The massacre

Main article: Red Lake massacre

On March 21, 2005, Weise killed a total of nine people. He first killed his grandfather, 58-year-old Daryl Allen Lussier, Sr., and Lussier's girlfriend, 31-year-old Michelle Leigh Sigana. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake Senior High School, including one teacher and a security guard. Five other students were injured in the shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise committed suicide via shotgun.

Weise and the Internet

According to reports, Weise spent vast amounts of time online.[4] In online posts, he frequently dealt with the subject of zombies, under the pseudonym "Blades11". In a short story he published on the internet in early 2004, titled "Surviving the Dead" [13], he includes a detailed description of a school massacre from the perspective of a victim, combining it with the theme of zombies. The story is bloody and crude in content and spelling. Grover's Mill, Minnesota, the "quiet town" in Weise's story, was the site of the landing of aliens in the radio version of War of the Worlds starring Orson Welles. Weise also posted at Above top secret.com [14].

Another website he frequented was The Official Mars Website, the online headquarters for the San Francisco Bay Area Horrorcore rapper Mars, where the users are encouraged to post about music, murder, and suicide on its forums. Weise was described by friends and family as an obsessed fan of both Horrorcore music and Mars.

Weise also created violent Flash animations and posted them on the Internet (including Newgrounds) using the alias "Regret". One animation entitled Target Practice depicts an individual who shoots three people with an assault rifle, blows up a police car with a grenade, then fatally shoots a Ku Klux Klan member. It ends when the character uses a handgun to shoot himself in the head. The animation is accompanied by the sounds of rapid gunfire.

An early reviewer of the animation on Newgrounds wrote, "Umm... ok. Was that like a warning message? Hmm dude you need help badly," to which Weise replied, "Lol, you obviously can't tell the difference between Fantasy and reality. This cartoon was made for nothing more than Random violence, and believe it or not there's an audience out there that this appeals to. So don't try judging my Mental health based upon a simple animation, capisce?" Weise's Newgrounds profile also noted that two of his favorite films were Elephant and Zero Day, which were both based on and inspired by the Columbine High School massacre.

Weise's only other animation on Newgrounds was "Clown," in which a clown devours a young man's head, this scene shown only less than a second (Easily seen by watching frame by frame).[15]

Weise is also believed to have posted messages on the Neo-Nazi Internet forum of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party under the aliases NativeNazi and Todesengel (German for "angel of death"). The posts revealed an admiration for the ideas of Adolf Hitler, and interests in persuading other Native Americans as to the merits of those ideas. He also had a fascination with the swastika. On one occasion, he fought with a pupil whom he referred to as a "Communist".

In one post, dated July 13, 2004, he claimed:

As a result of cultural dominance and interracial mixing there is [sic] barely any full blooded Natives left. Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run rampant...Under a National Socialist government, things for us would improve vastly… and that is why I am pro-Nazi. [16]

Another post read:

I try not to be aggressive in most situations, I'll use force if I have to, but I'm not about to go out and pick a fight. I'm mostly defensive, I'll defend myself if someone tries something but other than that I'm a peaceful person.

The posts were dated eleven months prior to the shooting, and as such it is not yet known if they are entirely relevant in understanding Weise's state of mind.

A LiveJournal account apparently created by Weise contained just three entries from December 2004 through January 2005. The weblog was customized to be rendered in black and white, and Weise expressed feelings in his few writings including a desire for change and salvation.

References

  1. ^ a b c Jeffrey Weise, The Ojibwe News (March 25, 2005)
  2. ^ a b c d Jeffrey James Weise obituary at Red Lake New News (March 25, 2005)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Reservation for Death by Kimberly Sevcik at Salon.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f Signs of Danger Were Missed in Troubled Teenager's Life by New York Times (March 23, 2005)
  5. ^ a b c Teen Red lake School Murderer Was on Prozac at rense.com (retrieved on June 24, 2010)
  6. ^ http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/03/22_ap_redlakesuspect/
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Langman, Peter. Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Page 122.
  9. ^ Langman, Peter. Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Page 122.
  10. ^ "Shooter is described as 'Goth kid'", Star-Telegram (subscription required)
  11. ^ Seattle Times: 15-year-old shooter "seemed lost in life", Seattle Times
  12. ^ [2]
  13. ^ http://writerscoven.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/717
  14. ^ http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread128654/pg1
  15. ^ Editors (March 23, 2005) "School Killer's Animated Terror." Smokinggun.com
  16. ^ http://www.nazi.org/community/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=News;action=display;num=1088739253;start=8#8
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