Eight killed in US school shooting

(Photo: Xinhua/REUTERS)

(Photo: Xinhua/REUTERS)

    BEIJING, Mar. 23 (Xinhuanet)-- Teenage gunman Jeff Weise, Minnesota high school student who killed nine and then shot himself to death, was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and had used the names "Todesengel" -- German for "Angel of Death" -- and "NativeNazi" when signing on to extreme right-wing Internet sites.

   

Teenage gunman Jeff Weise, Minnesota high school student who killed nine and then shot himself to death, is an admirer Adolf Hitler and had used the names "Todesengel" -- German for "Angel of Death" -- and "NativeNazi" when signing on to extreme right-wing Internet sites. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

On Monday, 17-year-old Jeff Weise went on a rampage, shooting to death his grandfather and the grandfather's companion, then invading his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. Armed with two pistols and a shotgun, he killed nine people and wounded seven before shooting himself to death in the nation's bloodiest school shooting since Columbine High in Colorado six years ago. 

    Floyd Jourdain, tribal chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, said the community was "devastated" and being forced to confront "the darkest days in the history of our people."

    According to the official account of FBI agent Michael Tabman, Weise started his bloodest rampage by shooting dead his 58-year-old grandfather Daryl Lussier, a sergeant in the local police, and Lussier's companion Michelle Sigana, 32.

    The teenage gunman then wore his grandfather's police bulletproof vest, gun belt and drove police car to the school.

    He was armed with the handgun, another .40 calibre handgun and a shotgun.

Sergeant Pat Graves has his badge covered with black electrical tape to honor the deaths of thos killed on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota. Jeff Weise, 15, opened gunfire at the Red Lake High School killing 9 people and himself in the nation's worst school shooting since the April 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.(Photo: Xinhua/AFP)

    Weise shot dead one of two unarmed security guards, Derrick Brun, while another fled inside.

    Inside the school Weise fired at a teacher, Neva Winnecoup-Rogers, 62, and a group of students.

    "He pursued them into a classroom. It is there he opened fire, killing a number of students and the teacher. Shortly after that, Mr. Weise continued to roam through the school, firing randomly," Tabman said.

    Four police arrived, Tabman said, and one opened fire at the teenager who shot back.

    Weise then withdrew to the classroom where he had killed the teacher and students and took his own life, the FBI agent said.

    According to news reports, his father committed suicide about four years ago, and his mother is in a nursing home after an auto accident.

     US President George W. Bush had been kept informed of events in Red Lake, according to the announcement of the White House.

    This was the worst school shooting in the United States since April 1999 when two students at a high school in Colorado killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before committing suicide. Enditem

    (Agencies)