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Victim’s father testifies in Rocori shooting trial:

The father of Rocori High School shooting victim Aaron Rollins, Tom Rollins, testified yesterday in the trail of shooter John Jason McLaughlin. Mr. Rollins works as a responder, which I guess is some kind of EMT or paramedic, and he was the first on the scene in his own son’s shooting. He basically watched his own son die…

Tom Rollins became familiar with the look of death early in his 14 years as a Cold Spring first responder.
A doctor had suffered a heart attack, and Rollins was one of the first on the scene to try to save the man. It was his first call as a responder, and his job was to “bag him,” slang for squeezing a device that keeps air flowing into a stricken person.

That duty put him in close proximity to the doctor’s head, and he’ll never forget what he saw in that doctor’s eyes.

It’s the same thing he saw in his son’s eyes Sept. 24, 2003. Rollins was one of the first rescue workers to reach his son, Aaron, in a basement hallway at Rocori High School.

“Looking into his eyes, it was like his eyes would stare right through the back of my head, like he was looking into outer space,” Rollins said of that doctor’s eyes years ago.

What did that tell him, asked prosecutor Bill Klumpp, about what he saw when he looked into his son’s eyes?

“Aaron had the same look,” Rollins said. “Aaron was dead.”

There was also testimony from police on the shooter himself…

Two police officers and a school counselor testified Thursday afternoon that McLaughlin said nothing in the minutes after the shooting. McLaughlin was in the office of counselor Craig Lieser for about 15 minutes after the crimes, until a police officer led McLaughlin out of the school in handcuffs. McLaughlin stared at a wall and said nothing, Lieser said.

Cold Spring Police Chief Phil Jones and school liaison officer Kevin Hagen gave similar accounts of McLaughlin’s behavior after he was disarmed by a teacher and led to Lieser’s office.

Jones said he asked McLaughlin three times whether he had acted alone in the shooting before he could get a “yes” answer.

Jones then was asked to describe McLaughlin’s demeanor.

“I don’t know if I have right words to describe it,” Jones said before taking a noticeable pause. “Basically sitting in a chair, quiet. During the time I was asking questions and he wasn’t answering me, I interpreted it to be cocky.”

So now we have the shooter with a smirk on his face, using a two-handed grip, and being cocky towards police, and we’re supposed to believe that some mysterious mental illness caused him to kill.

Again, I don’t think so.

‘Help me, I’m shot,’ Rocori student pleaded:

More testimony in the trial of John Jason McLaughlin, who shot and killed two classmates at Rocori High in Cold Spring, Minn. This article focuses mainly on Aaron Rollins, who was not McLaughlin’s intended target…

It was gym teacher Mary Kelsey whose voice comforted Rocori High School senior Aaron Rollins as the life bled out of him in the school basement Sept. 24, 2003.

She could hardly bear to recall her frantic efforts to help Rollins and comfort the popular 17-year-old, whose shirt was soaked with blood and whose gaze was distant and fixed.

“I told (him) help was coming, just to hang in there. What a great kid he was,” Kelsey said as she broke into tears.

“I knew he was dying. I was telling him things I’d want my girls to hear … how much he was loved….”

Kelsey said she partially caught Rollins as he spun after being hit.

”He looked at me and said, ‘Help me, I’m hurt. Help me, I’m shot.’ ”

Kelsey laid him down on the basement floor, and Rollins tried to get up once before falling back. ”He never spoke to me again,” she said.

And he was not the intended target.

Witnesses describe smirk, careful aim by McLaughlin:

(Log in info)
More testimony from Tuesday on the Rocori High School shooting…

Jade Schmitt, a freshman at the Cold Spring high school at the time of the shootings in 2003, testified that McLaughlin walked out of the locker room for gym class that day a few steps behind Bartell. Schmitt said he saw McLaughlin pull a .22-caliber pistol from his gym bag and raise it in a two-handed grip, then heard a shot and saw Bartell grab his side.

Another witness, reading instructor Louise Hopfer, said she also saw McLaughlin clasping the gun. Hopfer said he was aiming carefully, though she couldn’t see his target.

“I could see the smirk on his face – I knew he knew what he was going for,” Hopfer said.

Ross Kasparek, then a freshman, testified that he was walking up stairs to the gym ahead of Bartell. He saw McLaughlin walk toward Bartell with the gun, raising his arm as he approached.

Without saying anything, McLaughlin held the barrel of the gun a couple of inches from Bartell’s forehead and fired, Kasparek said.

A smirk on his face and a two-handed grip. And somehow we’re supposed to feel sorry for this kid. I don’t think so.

Testimony begins in Rocori court case:

Yesterday testimony began in the trial of John Jason McLaughlin, who is charged with shooting and killing two of his classmates, Seth Bartell and Aaron Rollins, at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota.

I can’t do the article justice, so please read the entire article.

Basically, what it comes down to is, the prosecution is saying that McLaughlin was teased to the breaking point about his acne and suffered from some kind of mental illness.

In my opinion, the only mental disorder that he had is that he’s a psychopath. According to reports, he shot Seth Bartell once in the side then followed him up a flight of stairs then shot him once more through the forehead. Here’s a chilling quote about that…

Much of McGee’s testimony Tuesday was set against the backdrop of a projection screen that showed autopsy pictures and other images, including Bartell’s last school yearbook photo. In the picture, Bartell is wearing a hat that his mother said he talked school staff into letting him wear for the picture, something that normally would be prohibited under school rules, she said.

That was the kind of boy Seth was, she said: able to get his way with a dose of charm. The Bartells saw that hat again Tuesday, only this time it was in McGee’s hands. He used it to show a half-inch hole in the brim, the spot through which McLaughlin fired his final, fatal shot.

All because of acne. The thought processes of some of these kids are downright frightening.

Teen waives jury trial in Cold Spring killings: (Log in info)

In an unusual turn of events for these kinds of cases, John Jason McLaughlin has waived his right to jury trial for the second-degree murder charge in the death of Aaron Rollins. The article doesn’t give too much information outside of that, but I’m assuming that he will still face a jury in the charge of first-degree murder in the death of Seth Bartell. In case you forgot from yesterday…

McLaughlin allegedly shot Bartell in a basement hallway in front of other students, wounding him superficially in the chest, then fired a second shot that missed Bartell but hit Rollins in the neck. Bartell fled up some stairs. McLaughlin pursued Bartell into the gym and shot him in the forehead, prosecutors say.

The defense is trotting out the usual…

Attorney Dan Eller has said McLaughlin only intended to wound Bartell, who he thought had been teasing him, and that Rollins was not his intended target.

Again, not a valid reason to shoot an unarmed person in the chest, chase him up a flight of stairs and shoot him in the head. If he was just trying to wound him, he wouldn’t have shot him through his skull.

And the myth continues to perpetuate.

It just goes to show you that I am not the authority on the subject, nor am I omniscient. This is a story that has eluded my notice for the past year and a half.

On Sept 24, 2003, 15-year-old John Jason McLaughlin shot two of his fellow students at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota. The victims were Aaron Rollins, 17, who was shot in the neck and died later that day in the hospital and the intended target Seth Bartell, 14, who was shot in the chest and head. Bartell held on for 16 days before passing away.

Here’s how the suspect was originally described back in 2003…

But lately, those who know McLaughlin said, he began to change. He seemed more withdrawn and didn’t want to come out to play. Some described him as intensely shy and self-conscious about his severe acne.

“It really was this summer that things seemed different,” Jess Phillips, 12, who lives about a block away, told the Star Tribune.

Neil Wackwitz, 15, who was perhaps his closest friend in the neighborhood, also told the newspaper said McLaughlin seemed to withdraw this summer.

Sullivan said she noticed lately that he didn’t seem to have many other friends. She wondered whether his small size or his acne played a role.

“Kids would tease him about that,” she said.

Wackwitz said he and McLaughlin used to play video or computer games or hang out. But lately, McLaughlin usually said he didn’t want to. He also started walking home after school instead of riding the bus.

Wackwitz said he felt bad but didn’t think anything was seriously wrong. He said McLaughlin never mentioned that anything or anyone was bugging him. In particular, he said, McLaughlin never complained to him that kids at school were picking on him.

Sullivan said that McLaughlin had mentioned to her that people were picking on him but that he didn’t seem too concerned about it.

But she said there were signs that something was amiss. During one of their long chats, she recalled, McLaughlin told her that he was being tested this summer for a split-personality disorder. She said he never mentioned it again.

Others also said that teasing may have been the motive behind the shooting. However…

If Jason McLaughlin brought a gun to school because he was tired of the teasing, classmates say they can’t figure out why he targeted Seth Barthell and Aaron Rollins.

Those two boys, according to Richter, were not among the kids who teased McLaughlin.

“I think his main target was some other kid,” he says.

In July 2004, McLaughlin pleaded not guilty under the defense that he did not intend to kill Seth Bartell and that his mental state was in question at the time. Previously, a grand jury had determined that Aaron Rollins was shot accidentally by McLaughlin.

McLaughlin was to be tried as an adult. His attorney appealed, but in November 2004, the appeal was denied. (Log in info)

And after almost two years, the trial is finally starting to get underway.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

If anyone has any more information that I missed, please let me know.