Tag: school shooting

More Red Lake Details Released:

But not many. Basically, the only details released at the press conference were things that most of us already knew. They gave a little more detail in how Weise exchanged gunfire with police…

At 2:57 p.m. Weise encountered armed Red Lake officers and exchanged gunfire with them. Investigators believe Weise was struck three times from police gunfire: once in the lower back, once in the leg and once in the right arm.

Other than that, the press conference was a bitchfest aimed at the media…

“A significant amount of what has been published and broadcast in this case is simply false,” he said. “The publishing of this false information and rumors has hindered the investigation, endangered the rights of individuals, and worst of all, harmed in a further way the people of Red Lake, by creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, hindering the community’s ability to heal, interfering with the return of students to the Red Lake High School, and violating the privacy rights of individual tribal members.”

Heffelfinger declined to say which reports had been wrong. He said his office was looking into news leaks for possible prosecution of the sources for obstruction of justice.

So basically, it was a non-event.

Press conference scheduled regarding Red Lake High School shooting:

I’ll just quote…

U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and FBI special agent Michael Tabman will hold a press conference today regarding the shootings at Red Lake Indian Reservation last month.

I’ll keep you informed if I hear anything else.

Tribe Gives Out Victims’ Assistance Money:

Some of the families of the victims of the Red Lake shootings are not happy about Jeff Weise’s family receiving victims’ assistance money from the Red Lake Tribal Council…

Apr. 14, 2005 – Red Lake Tribal Council gave $5,000 to the family of the 16-year-old gunman in last month’s school shootings as part of a victims’ assistance effort, angering those who think the shooter should not be treated as a victim.

The council gave that amount to 15 families Wednesday as the first distribution from a memorial fund that has received more than $200,000 in donations. The council decided Jeff Weise, who committed suicide at the end of the rampage, was a victim and his family should get some assistance.

“Why are they considering him to be a victim when he killed everybody?” asked Victoria Brun, sister of slain guard Derrick Brun. “The people who donated the money have a right to know and question how the money is divided.”

Donna Lewis, mother of victim Dewayne Lewis, 15, stormed out of a council meeting after hearing that members were considering it. “He ain’t no victim in this,” Lewis screamed, as she stood near the makeshift memorial outside the school. “He was a murderer.”

The tribal council explained it this way…

Tribal Secretary Judy Roy said Weise’s family needs help with his funeral expenses, but expects nothing more. “It’s understandable that some people would feel dismayed that his family would have a share in the fund,” she said.

To be honest, as much as I believe that Jeff Weise was in no way a victim, I have no problem with this. I mean, Weise killed his closest family member, and this will allow his family to bury him and get it over with.

Jeff Weise ‘ain’t no victim in this’:

One of the families of a Red Lake shooting victim has spoken out. Donna Lewis, the mother of slain victim Dewayne Lewis, had some choice words for the media and I find it hard to disagree with her…

“People are looking at that kid, Jeff Weise, like he’s a victim,” said Donna Lewis of Ponemah, whose son, Dewayne Lewis, 15, died in Weise’s assault on Red Lake Senior High School on March 21.

“He ain’t no victim in this. He’s the one that caused all of this. … He was a murderer. And I don’t even think that his family should even get s— from us. I think they’re the ones to blame, too, because the older people are supposed to watch their kids….

“They knew he was having problems. They should have been on him right away, instead of letting him go through life being a miserable little kid.”

It’s absolutely true. Jeff Weise was not a victim, and anyone who believes that is fooling themselves. The article states that some Red Lake residents speak of Weise as part of the community’s shared tragedy.

He is not part of the tragedy, he’s the cause of it.

Red Lake Student Ordered to Appear Before Grand Jury:

An unidentified Red Lake student has been ordered to appear before the grand jury in Minneapolis on April 13. The subpoena orders the student to provide fingerprints, a DNA sample, and a set of full-body photos. That last one kind of creeps me out. No word on the reason behind the subpoena.

No gun found in Red Lake High School:

A search of Red Lake High School found no weapons, and the school is safe for students to return next week, Red Lake public safety director Pat Mills said today.

That is all.

FBI: Gun Search At Red Lake High School:

Again, I’ll just quote…

A healing ceremony was postponed and Monday’s planned start of classes at Red Lake High School was in doubt after the FBI announced it was searching for a gun at the school.

“We have uncorroborated intelligence about the possibility of a gun on the premises of Red Lake High School,” FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said Thursday. Federal agents and Red Lake police were searching the school, he said.

What struck me as odd was that on Monday, when class reopens, armed security guards will be present. I realize this may be necessary, but it seems like a case of closing the barn door after the horses are out.

’20 plotters’ comment played down:

Just going to quote here…

The top federal prosecutor in Minnesota says a Red Lake tribal police officer’s claim that as many has 20 students may have known about Jeff Weise’s plan to go on a killing spree at the reservation’s high school was “opinion,” and he refused to endorse it.

U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger in Minneapolis pointed out that the comment, made during a school board meeting last week, came from a policeman whose department is not conducting the investigation into the March 21 shootings.

Even if 20 people didn’t know about the plot in advance, if more than one person knew and didn’t do anything to stop it, it’s too many.

Red Lake Whitewash:

I originally wanted to call this entry something less culturally sensitive, but I was talked out of it.

Anyway, this article is from the New York Press, which calls itself New York’s premiere alternative newspaper. That translates into a hippy rag. Rather than let Jeff Weise be responsible for his own actions, the “author” of this article lays the blame squarely on the evil white man. Read the whole article, but I’ll give you a little taste…

The goal of this cover-up is to place all blame for the massacre on Jeff Weise’s evil shoulders. Thus, every major news organization repeatedly describes Weise as a Nazi, a gore-obsessed goth who once gelled his hair into the shape of horns.

The Nazi claim is the craziest of all. The obvious contradiction—Weise is a Native American, a child of one of the world’s greatest Holocausts—is lost on the very culture that committed that Holocaust. Weise was acutely aware of his people’s Holocaust, and he explicitly linked his rage and his urge to massacre to America’s moral hypocrisy.

It is easy to imagine that Weise connected his personal misery to the larger misery of his people.

Ok, smart guy, let me ask you a question. If Jeff Weise was so outraged by the horrible treatment of his people, then why did he kill not only a member of his own bloodline but also other residents of his own reservation?

Get back to me when you unwrap yourself from your tin foil cocoon protecting you from your imagined white man conspiracy.