No answers how Ohio gunman got into school

updated 11:20 p.m. ET Oct. 11, 2007

CLEVELAND - Despite 26 security cameras, officials couldn’t say Thursday how an armed, suspended 14-year-old student was able to get into his downtown school a day earlier and shoot two students and two teachers before killing himself.

School officials also were investigating how a number of warning signs from the troubled student, including threats made last week, apparently went unheeded.

Police were checking surveillance video Thursday for clues as to how Asa H. Coon, armed with two revolvers, was able to enter the SuccessTech Academy alternative school. Police Chief Michael McGrath said a classmate could have let him in a back door.

Coon was a new student at the school, but the district has a dossier on past problems. He had mental health problems, spent time in two juvenile facilities and was suspended from school last year for attempting to harm a student, according to juvenile court records.

He had been suspended for a Monday fight, but students said officials had done nothing about threats he had made last week to blow up the school and stab students.

“I told my friends in the class that he had a gun and stuff,” Rasheem Smith, 15, said Thursday on CBS’s “Early Show.” “We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen.”

Responding on the show, schools CEO Eugene Sanders said the district would investigate. A message left at Principal Johneita Durant’s office was not returned. A phone call to her home was not answered.

No operating metal detectors
The school of about 240 students has metal detectors but none were operating Wednesday. Students said the devices were used only intermittently.

When asked how Coon got past an armed security guard or whether warnings signs were missed, the police chief said he couldn’t comment. McGrath said police consult with school officials on where to locate metal detectors, based in part on crime in schools.

Charles Blackwell, president of SuccessTech’s student-parent organization, said the position of a second security guard had been eliminated because of lack of money.

Maureen Harper, a city spokeswoman, said Sanders will give the mayor a plan by noon Friday to address whether additional security measures are needed at the school and how the school identifies potential problems among students.

Wearing black clothing, black-painted fingernails and a T-shirt of Marilyn Manson — the shock rocker he said he chose to worship instead of God — Coon fired as students ran screaming or hid under tables or in closets. Then the freshman shot himself behind his right ear with a .38-caliber shot shell loaded with pellets. Coroner Frank Miller ruled the death a suicide.

Preliminary investigation results
McGrath said a preliminary investigation found that Coon entered the school in a five-story converted office building and went to a fourth-floor bathroom, where he changed clothes and took items out of a duffel bag, possibly the weapons.

Students said Coon shot one student who had punched him after Coon bumped into him, and another who was walking up the stairs while others were fleeing. McGrath said Coon went to a classroom and shot a teacher, then, while looking for a second teacher, fired additional shots, wounding a teacher who was trying to help students get to another floor.

Near Coon’s body, police found the two guns, .22- and .38-caliber revolvers, and a box of ammunition for each, as well as three folding knives, McGrath said. He said the guns are older, meaning it will take some time to trace them.

One teacher remained hospitalized Thursday.

MORE FROM CRIME & COURTS

Crime & courts Section Front

Bodies dug up, cut up at black cemetery   N.H. tax evaders guilty in weapons plot   Terrorism suspect gets 1 year in jail Feds nab more than 35,000 fugitives Conn. man was on a 'suicide mission,' cops say   Court: Breath test accuracy varies Crime & courts Section Front   Add Crime & courts headlines to your news reader: