The gunman who killed two at a St. Louis performing arts high school on Monday left a chilling note complaining about his “isolated” existence, which he claimed created the “perfect storm” for a mass shooter, cops said Tuesday.
The shooter, who was killed in a firefight with cops inside Central Visual & Performing Arts High School, was identified on Monday as 19-year-old Orlando Harris. He’d graduated from the school earlier this year.
“I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never had a social life. I’ve been an isolated loner my entire life. This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter,” Orlando Harris wrote in a handwritten note left in his car, cops said at a press conference.
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Harris entered the high school with an “AR-15-style rifle” and 600 rounds of ammunition—enough to wipe out the entire school of just under 400 students, St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack said Tuesday.
“This could have been a horrific scene,” Sack said. “That’s a whole lot of victims there.”
Sack said detectives are honing in on Harris’ loneliness as a likely motive behind the massacre, which could've been much worse had cops not taken Harris out just minutes after he opened fire.
“(Harris) feels isolated, he feels alone—quite possibly angry and resentful of others who have, it appeared to him, to have healthy relationships,” Sack said, adding that the teen had a “desire to lash out.”
The note appeared to align with what survivors recalled hearing Harris mumble as he opened fire on the school. One student said Monday that he heard the shooter say he was “tired of everybody in this damn school.”
Sack said Monday that a woman died at the hospital and that a teenage girl was pronounced dead inside the school, both of gunshot wounds.
The woman killed was identified as 61-year-old Jean Kuczka, a health and P.E. teacher who had five children of her own, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, citing relatives.
The student who died was sophomore Alexandria Bell, 16, the Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday.
Four other students were shot and injured—two in the leg, one in the arm, and one in the hands and jaw, Sack said. Two other students suffered abrasions and a girl fractured her ankle, but their injuries were not considered to be serious.
Sack said Harris was shot on the third floor of the high school after a brief exchange of gunfire with responding officers. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
