| Background information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Jeffrey James Weise |
| Born | August 8, 1988 Minneapolis, Minnesota[1] |
| Died | March 21, 2005 (aged 16) Red Lake, Minnesota, United States |
| Cause of death | Self-inflicted shotgun blast |
| Killings | |
| Date | March 21, 2005 |
| Location(s) | Red Lake, Minnesota, United States |
| Target(s) | Red Lake Senior High School |
| Killed | 9 |
| Injured | 5 |
| Weapon(s) | 40. caliber Glock 23 pistol Ruger 22. caliber pistol Remington 12 gauge shotgun |
Jeffrey James "Jeff" Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) was an Ojibwe Native American adolescent, and a student at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake, Minnesota. He murdered nine people and wounded five others in a shooting spree on March 21, 2005, in the Red Lake Indian Reservation located in northwest Minnesota. Weise first murdered his grandfather and grandfather's girlfriend at his trailer home in Red Lake, an unarmed security guard, a teacher and five students at Red Lake Senior High School. The shooting ended when Weise committed suicide.
Contents |
Jeffrey James Weise was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the only child to 21-year-old Daryl Allen Lussier, Jr. and 17-year-old Joanne Elizabeth Weise.[1][2] His parents were an unmarried couple from the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, who had separated before he was born. In November 1988, Joanne was forced by her parents to place her three-month-old son in the care of his father in Red Lake.[2] In June 1991, when he was two years old, Jeff was reclaimed by his mother in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. His mother was alleged to be a violent alcoholic, who would physically and emotionally abuse her first born son.[2]
Shortly thereafter, in 1992, Joanne Weise began dating a Lakota man named Timothy Troy DesJarlait. The two married on June 27, 1998, however divorced in February 2000. The couple had two children: daughter Daphne, born in 1995, and son Sebastian, born in 1997.[1][3]
On July 21, 1997, Daryl Lussier, Jr. committed suicide via shotgun wound to the head, after a two-day standoff with the Red Lake Police Department in Red Lake.[2][3] Daryl Lussier, Sr., his father, had attempted to intervene in the event, but failed to bring the standoff to a peaceful end.
On March 5, 1999, Joanne Weise suffered severe brain damage in a car accident, in which a tractor-trailer crashed into her car on a highway in Minneapolis. She and her cousin Elizabeth May Jourdain were drinking alcohol and driving, and the accident resulted in Jourdain's death and Joanne having to be committed to a nursing home in Bloomington, Minnesota.[2][3] Consequently, Jeff was placed in the care of his paternal grandmother Shelda Lussier in Red Lake. He expressed frustration with living in Red Lake, and believed that his life was beyond his control.
His depression provoked a suicide attempt in May 2004, describing his experience in a post made on the website Above Top Secret:
I had went through a lot of things in my life that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take. I split the flesh on my wrist with a box opener, painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt. After sitting there for what seemed like hours (which apparently was only minutes), I had the revelation that this was not the path. It was my dicision (sic) to seek medical treatment, as on the other hand I could have chose to sit there until enough blood drained from my downward lascerations on my wrists to die.
Weise attended Pearson Elementary School in Shakopee, Minnesota from kindergarten to fourth grade, Bluff Creek Elementary School in Chaska, Minnesota for fifth grade, Red Lake Middle School in Red Lake, Minnesota for sixth through eighth grades, and Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake for ninth grade. In 2001, Weise was forced to repeat the eighth grade because of failing grades and truancy, and enrolled in a special education program at the school called Learning Center.
In September 2003, Weise enrolled at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake. He was remembered as withdrawn by teachers and fellow students and reportedly had a history of troublesome behavior. However, his social studies teacher Wanda Baxter recalled, "[Weise] was a good listener like any other ordinary student. He was quiet but never a troublemaker."[4] Another teacher described Weise as "a pretty bright kid, but was lazy when it came to school."[5] According to reports, Weise endured frequent bullying by fellow students because of his physical appearance and regularly dressing in all-black clothing.[3] In spite of this, he usually did not respond to their taunts. Jeffrey himself said, "Because of my size and appearance people don't give me as much trouble as they would if I looked weak."[6] In spite of the bullying, several students remember Weise as being non-violent.[2] Sophomore student Cartera Hart was a close friend of Weise and described him as "the only one I talked to about my problems. He was trustworthy, and he was always capable of understanding what I was going through."[2] Although he has sometimes been described as a loner, several students have testified that he possessed a great deal of friends.[6] He was known to wear a black trench coat and black clothing to school all year round, and was labeled a "Goth kid" by fellow students.[7][8] He was also known to have a notebook into which he drew what has been described by friend Sky Grant as "evil and dark... stuff".[5]
In March 2004, during a school pep rally, Weise extended his right arm upward in the Nazi salute while students were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.[2] He was sent to a school counselor and professed far-right leanings and his admiration for Adolf Hitler.[2] In April, the faculty at Red Lake Senior High School had been warned of someone threatening to "shoot up" the school on April 20, Hitler's birthday and the five-year anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.[3] Weise was a prime suspect in the threat and was expelled in October. For the following five months, Weise was enrolled in a home-schooling program for children residing on the reservation.
Weise is also believed to have posted messages on the Neo-Nazi Internet forum of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party under the aliases NativeNazi and Todesengel (German for "angel of death"), possibly named after Josef Mengele the Nazi Doctor. The posts revealed an admiration for the ideas of Adolf Hitler, and interests in persuading other Native Americans as to the merits of those ideas. He also had a fascination with the swastika. On one occasion, he fought with a pupil whom he referred to as a "Communist".
In one post, dated July 13, 2004, he claimed:
As a result of cultural dominance and interracial mixing there is [sic] barely any full blooded Natives left. Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run rampant...Under a National Socialist government, things for us would improve vastly… and that is why I am pro-Nazi. [9]
Another post read:
I try not to be aggressive in most situations, I'll use force if I have to, but I'm not about to go out and pick a fight. I'm mostly defensive, I'll defend myself if someone tries something but other than that I'm a peaceful person.
The posts were dated eleven months prior to the shooting.
On March 21, 2005, Weise killed a total of nine people. He first killed his grandfather, 58-year-old Daryl Allen Lussier, Sr., and Lussier's girlfriend, 31-year-old Michelle Leigh Sigana. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake Senior High School, including one teacher and a security guard. Five other students were injured in the shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise committed suicide via shotgun.
According to reports, Weise spent vast amounts of time online.[3] In online posts, he frequently dealt with the subject of zombies, under the pseudonym "Blades11". In a short story he published on the internet in early 2004, titled "Surviving the Dead",[10] he includes a detailed description of a school massacre from the perspective of a victim, combining it with the theme of zombies. The story is bloody and crude in content and spelling. Grover's Mill, Minnesota, the "quiet town" in Weise's story, was the site of the landing of aliens in the radio version of War of the Worlds starring Orson Welles. Weise also posted at Above top secret.com.[11]
Another website he frequented was The Official Mars Website, the online headquarters for the San Francisco Bay Area Horrorcore rapper Mars, where the users are encouraged to post about music, murder, and suicide on its forums. Weise was described by friends and family as an obsessed fan of both Horrorcore music and Mars.
Weise also created violent Flash animations and posted them on the Internet (including Newgrounds) using the alias "Regret". One animation entitled Target Practice depicts an individual who shoots three people with an assault rifle, blows up a police car with a grenade, then fatally shoots a Ku Klux Klan member. It ends when the character uses a handgun to shoot himself in the head. The animation is accompanied by the sounds of rapid gunfire.
A reviewer of the animation on Newgrounds wrote, "Umm... ok. Was that like a warning message? Hmm dude you need help badly," to which Weise replied, "Lol, you obviously can't tell the difference between Fantasy and reality. This cartoon was made for nothing more than Random violence, and believe it or not there's an audience out there that this appeals to. So don't try judging my Mental health based upon a simple animation, capisce?" Weise's Newgrounds profile also noted that two of his favorite films were Elephant and Zero Day, which were both based on and inspired by the Columbine High School massacre.
Weise's only other animation on Newgrounds was "Clown," in which a clown devours a young man's head, although the scene is shown for less than a second.[12] Weise was briefly part of a defunct animation website known as Anitude, where he created an unfinished crime series featuring violent gangsters.
A LiveJournal account apparently created by Weise contained just three entries from December 2004 through January 2005. The weblog was customized to be rendered in black and white, and Weise expressed feelings in his few writings including a desire for change and salvation.