How the shooting unfolded
Just as school started Jan. 20 in the high school wing of the West Liberty-Salem district’s combined campus, shots rang out from a boy’s bathroom in a back hallway. At least six shots were fired, including in the bathroom and into two classrooms. Junior Logan Cole was shot twice and critically injured. Senior Adam Schultz received a minor wound from a shotgun pellet. Senior Ely Serna surrendered almost immediately and has been charged with, among other things, two counts of attempted murder.
Ely Serna removes his own 12-gauge shotgun from the case where it had been kept in his mother’s bathroom or bedroom while she is outside smoking a cigarette.
Serna takes ammunition from his mother’s bedroom closet while she is in the shower. Serna arrives at school. Morning bell rings. Shots are fired in the bathroom and Logan Cole is hit. Almost immediately after, shots are fired into Classrooms 412 and 413 directly across the hallway. A teacher calls the office and a secretary yells “active shooter” over the intercom.
7:39 a.m. High School/Middle School Principal Greg Johnson and K-12 Assistant Principal Andy McGill storm the hallway bathroom where they heard voices. They find Cole on the ground, wounded, and Serna close by. Serna immediately surrenders.
7:41 a.m. The school’s athletic director, the closest person with medical training, arrives in the bathroom. 7:43 a.m. The school nurse arrives. 7:44 a.m. The first officers arrive. 7:50 a.m. Medical personnel prepare to leave the school with Cole. 8:08 a.m. A deputy sheriff takes Serna to the Champaign County sheriff’s office for questioning.
8:34 a.m. Deputies begin to interview Serna.
9:40 a.m. Serna’s grandparents, who are both attorneys, arrive and demand that the questioning stop. The interview ends.
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Through the afternoon and evening, authorities search the home of Serna’s mother and stepfather on Sink Hole Road.