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By Dennis Cauchon and Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
CLEVELAND — Public schools were to be shut down today to give teachers and students a chance to recover from a shooting rampage Wednesday in which a 14-year-old boy shot four people before killing himself.
Asa Coon had been suspended from SuccessTech Academy two days beforehand and may have gone back to school with two handguns for revenge, Police Chief Michael McGrath said.
"It may have been the teachers he went to school looking for," McGrath said.
SuccessTech Academy, located in downtown Cleveland, has a reputation for high academic performance. Students must apply for admission.
It has metal detectors and security personnel, but McGrath said Coon roamed the hallways of the school with .38- and .22-caliber pistols, a box of ammunition and three knives. He shot himself before police got to him, McGrath said.
Several students said he made threats Friday to blow up the school.
"He's crazy. He threatened to stab everybody," said student Doneisha LeVert, who said Coon was suspended for fighting. "We didn't think nothing of it."
Student Frances Henderson, 14, said she often got into arguments with Coon, who once told her, "I got something for you all."
She said he was a "gothic," or a student who usually wore a trench coat, black boots and a dog collar.
Students said they hid in closets and bathrooms and huddled under laboratory desks after the principal announced a "Code Blue" alert over the public address system.
Darnell Rodgers, who was shot in the elbow, said he thought a fight had broken out when he saw students stampeding down the stairways. Then his arm started burning.
"That's when I realized that I had got shot," Rodgers, 18, said as he left a hospital.
The mayor said the other three shooting victims were taken to hospitals. He said a 14-year-old boy was in stable condition and two male teachers — ages 42 and 57 — were in "a little elevated condition."
McGrath said there were video surveillance cameras throughout the 5-story building and that his department will review them in the coming days to figure out how the teen was able to enter the school.
Friday was scheduled to be an off-day for students so city officials decided to close all schools today, said Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders, to "take a breather … and put this in perspective."
School safety already had been a high priority for Cleveland officials before Wednesday's shooting. Jackson said the school of 250 students has a full-time security staff.
In an interview with USA TODAY on Friday, Sanders listed school safety as one of his top three priorities.
"Part of my pressure on a daily basis is simply to make sure kids get to and from school safely," Sanders told USA TODAY.
On Wednesday, the scene at the school was chaotic. Ronnell Jackson, 15, said he saw Coon running down a hallway.
"He was about to shoot me, but I got out just in time," he said.
LeVert said she heard about 10 shots.
Students stood outside the building, many in tears, hugging each other and on cellphones. Family members also stood outside, anxiously waiting for their children to be released.
The shooting happened across the street from the FBI office in downtown Cleveland, and students were being sent to the FBI site.
SuccessTech Academy is a public high school that emphasizes technology and entrepreneurship. It is housed on several floors of the district's downtown Cleveland Lakeside Avenue administration building.
"It's a shining beacon for the Cleveland Metropolitan School System," said John Zitzner, founder and president of E CITY Cleveland, a non-profit group aimed at teaching business skills to inner-city teens. "It's orderly, it's disciplined, it's calm, it's focused."
The school, opened five years ago, ranks in the middle of the state's ratings for student performance. Its graduation rate is 94%, well above the district's rate of 55%.
GF metal detectors.
Discuss.
CLEVELAND — Public schools were to be shut down today to give teachers and students a chance to recover from a shooting rampage Wednesday in which a 14-year-old boy shot four people before killing himself.
Asa Coon had been suspended from SuccessTech Academy two days beforehand and may have gone back to school with two handguns for revenge, Police Chief Michael McGrath said.
"It may have been the teachers he went to school looking for," McGrath said.
SuccessTech Academy, located in downtown Cleveland, has a reputation for high academic performance. Students must apply for admission.
It has metal detectors and security personnel, but McGrath said Coon roamed the hallways of the school with .38- and .22-caliber pistols, a box of ammunition and three knives. He shot himself before police got to him, McGrath said.
Several students said he made threats Friday to blow up the school.
"He's crazy. He threatened to stab everybody," said student Doneisha LeVert, who said Coon was suspended for fighting. "We didn't think nothing of it."
Student Frances Henderson, 14, said she often got into arguments with Coon, who once told her, "I got something for you all."
She said he was a "gothic," or a student who usually wore a trench coat, black boots and a dog collar.
Students said they hid in closets and bathrooms and huddled under laboratory desks after the principal announced a "Code Blue" alert over the public address system.
Darnell Rodgers, who was shot in the elbow, said he thought a fight had broken out when he saw students stampeding down the stairways. Then his arm started burning.
"That's when I realized that I had got shot," Rodgers, 18, said as he left a hospital.
The mayor said the other three shooting victims were taken to hospitals. He said a 14-year-old boy was in stable condition and two male teachers — ages 42 and 57 — were in "a little elevated condition."
McGrath said there were video surveillance cameras throughout the 5-story building and that his department will review them in the coming days to figure out how the teen was able to enter the school.
Friday was scheduled to be an off-day for students so city officials decided to close all schools today, said Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders, to "take a breather … and put this in perspective."
School safety already had been a high priority for Cleveland officials before Wednesday's shooting. Jackson said the school of 250 students has a full-time security staff.
In an interview with USA TODAY on Friday, Sanders listed school safety as one of his top three priorities.
"Part of my pressure on a daily basis is simply to make sure kids get to and from school safely," Sanders told USA TODAY.
On Wednesday, the scene at the school was chaotic. Ronnell Jackson, 15, said he saw Coon running down a hallway.
"He was about to shoot me, but I got out just in time," he said.
LeVert said she heard about 10 shots.
Students stood outside the building, many in tears, hugging each other and on cellphones. Family members also stood outside, anxiously waiting for their children to be released.
The shooting happened across the street from the FBI office in downtown Cleveland, and students were being sent to the FBI site.
SuccessTech Academy is a public high school that emphasizes technology and entrepreneurship. It is housed on several floors of the district's downtown Cleveland Lakeside Avenue administration building.
"It's a shining beacon for the Cleveland Metropolitan School System," said John Zitzner, founder and president of E CITY Cleveland, a non-profit group aimed at teaching business skills to inner-city teens. "It's orderly, it's disciplined, it's calm, it's focused."
The school, opened five years ago, ranks in the middle of the state's ratings for student performance. Its graduation rate is 94%, well above the district's rate of 55%.
GF metal detectors.
Discuss.
