Armed student is subdued in Joplin

One does not expect something like this to occur at one’s old high school, however, it can happen anywhere, folks.  No one is safe as long as high powered weapons of this type are allowed in the general populace.  This weapon would have been illegal had the Brady Bill been renewed in 2003.

 

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) -- A student carrying an AK-47 assault rifle walked into Memorial Middle School this morning and fired a weapon, but did not hit anyone, police said. No injuries were reported.

The student is a 13-year-old boy whose name was withheld. He pointed the weapon at two students and Principal Steve Gilbreth and Assistant Superintendent Steve Doerr and asked them, "not to make me do this," said School Superintendent Jim Simpson.

The student then raised the weapon and fired a shot into the ceiling, breaking a water pipe. After firing the shot, he said again, "Please don't make me do this," Simpson said.

"It was a very close call," Simpson said.

Doerr and Gilbreth persuaded the student to leave the building, where he was met by two police officers who had their weapons drawn. The student dropped the rifle and was taken into custody, Simpson said.

Joplin police Officer Curt Farmer said officers had found a note in the student's backpack indicating that he had placed an explosive in the school, which has about 700 students. Students in the school were moved to nearby Joplin Memorial Hall, where parents were advised they could take them home.

Simpson said the school would be closed for the day while police searched the building.

The student was wearing a makeshift mask and had been planning an attack for a "long time," Simpson said.

Simpson said authorities did not know whether others were involved.

The shooting happened about 7:45 a.m., 10 minutes before school was to start.

A mother who was dropping her son off at the school refused to let him get out of the car when she saw Gilbreth "waving crazily" as police cars pulled up behind her.

Blake Spivak, former advertising director for The Joplin Globe, sat in her car with her son, Cooper, as Gilbreth walked back into the schoo,l flanked on either side by police carrying weapons and dressed in flack jackets.

"I couldn't have left if I wanted to," Spivak told the Globe. "Police were heading into the school with weapons drawn, and the principal was pointing to the east side of the school,"

Spivak said after about 10 minutes, a police officer had walked by her car and told her she needed to get down or get her car away from the scene.

"I managed to get to the parking lot where there were about 30 kids congregated," she said. "Parents were arriving to check on their kids."

Spivak said Gilbreth later had come out and gathered the students together to let them know the student with the gun had been arrested.

"He assured them that their friends were safe and that no one had been hurt," Spivak said. "The principal seemed very much in control and in command of the situation."

Joplin has about 40,900 residents and is in southwestern Missouri, on the Kansas border about 140 miles south of Kansas City.

Schools across the country have been on alert after three deadly school shootings in three states in the span of a week, and several schools have been locked down or closed entirely during the past two weeks because of threats.

In Pennsylvania Amish country Monday morning, church bells tolled across the region in remembrance of the five young girls who were shot to death at their one-room schoolhouse one week earlier.