The gunman who killed two people and wounded several others at a St. Louis high school on Monday had an AR-15, over 600 rounds of ammunition and a note saying his life struggles created “the perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
“He had seven magazines of ammunition on a chest rig that he wore, he also had an additional eight magazines of ammunition in a field bag that he had carried,” St. Louis police Commissioner Michael Sack said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This doesn’t include the number of magazines that he left and dumped on the stairway in the corridors along the way.”
Sack said the gunman, Orlando Harris, 19, graduated from Central Visual and Performing Arts High School last year. He entered the school around 9 a.m Monday morning with what officers described at the time as a long gun. Harris was injured during a shootout with police and later pronounced dead.
Sack said officers found a handwritten note in the car Harris drove to the school. He read a part of the letter during the news conference.
“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,” the note said, according to Sack. “This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
Sack said the gunman did not try to hide his weapon when entering the school. “It was out … there was no mystery about what was going to happen. He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner,” he said according to CNN.
It is still not clear how he managed to enter the school with the weapon given that the doors were closed. Sack did not provide any details on that during the press conference because, “I don’t want to make this easy for anybody else.”
Two people, 61-year-old health teacher Jean Kuczka and 15-year-old student Alexzandria Bell, were killed during the attack. Several others were taken to hospital with injuries ranging from gunshot wounds to a fractured ankle and facial abrasions.
