Police seized HS killer’s gun
But St. Louis teen got it back
The family of the St. Louis high school mass shooter asked police for help removing the AR-15style assault rifle from him nine days before the rampage — but it somehow ended up back in his hands, cops said.
On Oct. 15, officers responded to a domestic-disturbance call at 19-yearold Orlando Harris’ home, where his mother found the weapon and wanted it removed, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Harris was legally permitted to have the gun, but police still transferred it to a third party so it would not remain on the premises, officials said late Wednesday.
“While it is not yet clear when or how the suspect came to be in possession of the firearm after this incident, we can confirm that the firearm involved in this incident is the firearm used in the shooting Monday,” police Sgt. Charles Wall said in a statement.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating to track the source of the rifle sale, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said, adding that it is difficult to track a gun’s ownership if it has been sold from person to person.
Harris left a manifestolike note in his car before storming Central Visual and Performing Arts HS with the rifle and at least 600 rounds of ammo Monday and killing physical-education teacher Jean Kuczka, 61, and 15year-old student Alexandria Bell.
Seven others were wounded in the attack.
Sack said Harris had been seeing mental-health professionals and that his family had him committed several times.
“They always worked to try and get him back on his medication, back into therapy, whatever it is that he needed,” Sack said.
“Sometimes that’s not enough. Mental health is a difficult thing. It’s hard to tell when someone is violent and going to act out,” Sack said. “I’ve got to give credit to the family — they made every effort that they felt they reasonably could. That’s why the mother is so heartbroken over the families that paid for his episode.”
The school’s doors were locked Monday morning, and an unarmed security guard saw Harris trying to get in. Police have yet to say how the gunman forced his way inside.
Officers, some off duty, arrived four minutes after the 911 call, police said. Eight minutes later, they located Harris on the third floor, where he was barricaded in a classroom.
Harris shot at officers, who shot back, killing the gunman, police said.
Bell was found dead in a hallway. Kuczka was found alive in a classroom but died at a hospital, officials said.
Meanwhile, one of the wounded students, Brian Collins, 15, has been released from the hospital.
Stephanie Malia Krauss, Collins’ godmother and aunt, told the Post-Dispatch he had been in health class when Harris broke into the room and killed Kuczka.
Collins was shot in both hands and the jaw, where a bullet narrowly missed an artery. He escaped by jumping from a secondstory window.