Shooting suspect claims bullying

ROCKFORD, Wash. — A 15-year-old boy accused of shooting four classmates at a rural high school in Washington state had been meeting with a school counselor over suicidal thoughts before bringing two guns from home and killing a student he said had bullied him, according to court documents released Thursday.

The documents and his classmates detailed troubling behavior by the suspect, saying he brought notes to school about doing “something stupid,” was obsessed with past school shootings and posted videos online showing him playing with guns.

The suspect, a sophomore at the school of 300 students, also had left a suicide note at home for his parents, the records said. Freeman High School in the town of Rockford has not responded to calls for comment on how they dealt with the suspect’s behavior outside of counseling for his suicidal thoughts.

He took an assault weapon and a handgun from his father’s gun safe, to which he knew the combination, and brought them in a duffel bag to the school south of Spokane on Wednesday, an investigator for the Spokane County Sheriff ’s Office wrote in an affidavit.

He pulled out the AR-15 rifle and tried to fire it in a hallway but it jammed, the records said. That’s when a classmate approached the teen. “I always knew you were going to shoot up the school,” the student said before the suspect shot him in the head and abdomen with the handgun, according to the documents.

The suspect told police that he had been bullied by that student but did not target him specifically.

“Instead he’d come to the school to teach everyone a lesson about what happens when you bully others,” the documents said the boy told investigators.

He kept firing the handgun, striking three students, until it also jammed, documents said.

He dropped the handgun and surrendered to an approaching janitor, Joe Bowen, who ordered him to the ground and held him for authorities, the documents said.

The suspect was arrested; the three wounded victims are expected to survive.

KHQ A teenager killed one student and injured three others Wednesday at Freeman High School in Rockford, Wash.