ST. LOUIS — A former student barricaded himself inside a classroom prior to being shot and killed by police after he opened fire inside Central Visual and Performing Arts High School just after 9 a.m. Monday, according to police.
Police identified the suspect late Monday as 19-year-old Orlando Harris and said he shot and killed 61-year-old Jean Kuczka and 15-year-old Alexzandria Bell.
Four other students were shot and injured — two in the leg, one in the arm, and one in the hands and jaw. Two more students suffered abrasions, and a girl fractured her ankle.
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In an incident report released Tuesday afternoon, police said Harris barricaded himself in a third-floor classroom near the library prior to police exchanging fire with him.
Officers received a 911 call from a school security officer at 9:11 a.m., and officers arrived a few minutes later and began searching inside the building for Harris. They said they saw numerous cartridges and casings along with AR-style magazines in the hallways and stairwells of the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, which shares a campus with CVPA.
As people evacuated the school, officers said they heard a "volley of gunshots from the third floor of the building."
They found Harris on the third floor and said he had barricaded himself inside a classroom, at which point officers told him to drop his weapon and surrender.
Harris then fired shots from inside the classroom, police said, and officers returned fire. They then broke down the door and fired several shots at Harris as he pointed his gun at them.
Police haven’t said how many shots were fired inside the school but on Tuesday released photos of the suspect's gun and said he had about 600 rounds of ammunition inside the school.
Police also said he left behind handwritten notes about being a loner with no social life, which he called the perfect storm for a mass shooting
Harris was later pronounced dead a hospital.
Bell, the 15-year-old shot and killed during the attack, was found in a hallway of the Collegiate School and pronounced dead there.
Kuczka, a physical education teacher at the south St. Louis school, was found shot in a classroom of CVPA. She was taken to a hospital and later died, police said.
Interim St. Louis police Commissioner Michael Sack said Monday evening that he was “extremely proud†of the police response. The suspect was shot just 14 minutes after the 911 call. He said a security officer saw the man trying to enter the building, and police were alerted.
Several parents and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones also commended the police response.
