Student, 13, fires AK-47 in Missouri school
JOPLIN, Missouri (AP) -- A 13-year-old student fired an AK-47 into the ceiling at his middle school Monday morning after confronting a pair of students and administrators, telling them "please don't make me do this," officials said.
No one was injured, and the boy was taken into custody.
The student was wearing a mask and pointed the gun at the two students, Principal Steve Gilbreth and Assistant Superintendent Steve Doerr, telling them "not to make me do this," Superintendent Jim Simpson said.
He then fired the shot into the ceiling, breaking a water pipe, and said again: "Please don't make me do this," Simpson said.
Doerr and Gilbreth were able to persuade the student to leave the building, and he was confronted by two police officers who had their weapons drawn. The student dropped the rifle and was taken into custody, Simpson said.
"It was a very close call," he said.
Joplin police Officer Curt Farmer said officers found a note in the student's backpack indicating that he had placed an explosive in the school, which has about 750 students. Students in the school were moved to nearby Joplin Memorial Hall, where parents picked them up.
The school was closed while police Missouri State Highway Patrol officers searched the building with bomb-sniffing dogs.
The student had been planning an attack for a "long time," Simpson said without elaborating. He said authorities did not know whether others were involved.
It wasn't immediately clear how the boy got access to the assault rifle.
Police searched a home in the area and officers were seen leaving the house carrying two rifles, The Joplin Globe reported. Police roped off a half-block area around the house and would not reveal specifics about the search.
The shooting happened about 7:45 a.m., 10 minutes before the start of classes.
A woman who was dropping her son off at the school said she saw Gilbreth "waving crazily" and police cars pulling up behind her.
"Police were heading into the school with weapons drawn, and the principal was pointing to the east side of the school," Blake Spivak told The Joplin Globe.
Spivak, former advertising director for the newspaper, said she and her son, Cooper, stayed in the car while Gilbreth walked back into the school flanked by armed officers in protective jackets. She said an officer told her to get down or get her car away from the scene.
Joplin, which has about 40,900 residents, is in southwest Missouri, on the Kansas border about 140 miles south of Kansas City.
Schools across the country have been on alert since 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.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/mis....ap/index.html
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