An armed former student entered a St. Louis high school Monday morning, yelling, “You’re all going to die!” warned. He died after police opened fire before shooting dead a teacher and a teenage girl, and injuring seven others.
The attack at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School just after 9 a.m. forced students to barricade doors and huddle in corners of classrooms, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety. A terrified girl said she was eye-to-eye with the gunman before his gun jammed and she was able to escape.
Speaking at a news conference Monday afternoon, Police Chief Michael Sack identified the shooter as 19-year-old Orlando Harris, who graduated from the school last year.
Sack said the motive is still under investigation but “there is suspicion that he may have been experiencing mental illness.” Investigators later searched Harris’ home, Sack said.
Authorities did not release the names of the victims, but the St. Louis Post-Dispatch identified the dead teacher as Gene Kuzka. Her daughter said her mother was killed when a gunman stormed her classroom and moved between her and her students.
“My mother loved children,” Abe Kuzka told the newspaper. “She loved her students. I know her students looked up to her like a mother.
Another 16-year-old girl died at the school, Sack said.
Seven other 15- and 16-year-old students, four boys, and three girls, were all in stable condition. Four students suffered gunshot or graze wounds, two suffered concussions and one had a broken knee.
Sack declined to say how Harris was able to enter a building with security guards, locked doors, and metal detectors.
“If there’s somebody who wants it, they’re going to find out, we don’t want to make it easy for them,” Sack said. “We just did the best we could to extend that time for them to get to the building to buy us time to respond.”
Harris had his gun out when he arrived at the school and “had no idea what was going to happen. He pulled it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner.
Harris had about a dozen rounds of high-capacity ammunition, Sack said. “It’s a lot of victims. … It’s certainly tragic for the families and it’s tragic for our community but it could have been a lot worse.”
St. Louis Schools Superintendent Calvin Adams said seven security guards were at the school at the time of the attack and each was stationed at the entrance to the locked building. A guard saw the gunman trying unsuccessfully to get in through the locked door. The guard notified school officials, who contacted the police.
Sack said a call about a shooter came in at 9:11 a.m. and officers arrived and took Harris down at 9:25 a.m. He and others praised the quick response of officers and other emergency responders.
Central Visual and Performing Arts shares a building with another magnet school, the Collegiate School of Medicine and Biosciences. Central has 383 students, and College has 336.
Monday’s school shooting was the 40th this year that resulted in injuries or deaths, according to a tally from Education Week — the most in any year since shootings began tracking in 2018. Deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. In May, 19 children and two teachers died. Monday’s St. Louis shooting came on the same day that a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a December 2021 school shooting that killed four students.
Tania Gholston said that she was able to escape after the gunman opened fire as soon as he entered the classroom. “All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” the 16-year-old told the Post-Dispatch. “I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. He and I made eye contact but I shook it off because his gun jammed. “
Two teachers closely recalled the confrontation with the shooter.
Ashley Wrench told The Associated Press that she was teaching advanced algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud noise. Then the school intercom announced, “Miles Davis is in the building.”
“That’s our code for intruders,” Wrench said.
Students took refuge under her desk and behind her podium as the gunman tried to enter the locked classroom before giving up.
“I don’t know why he didn’t choose to break my window or shoot through the lock,” she said.
Raymond was about to teach a dance class for Parks Jr. when a man dressed in black approached. At first, Parks thought the man was carrying a broom or stick. Then he realized it was a gun.
“The children started screaming and running. He went straight to the double doors and pulled a gun because I was in front,” Park said.
For some unknown reason, Parks said, the shooter pointed the gun away from him and walked Parks and a dozen or so students out of the room. “I won’t do that to you understand He let me go,” Park said.
Jayne Douglas’ 15-year-old daughter was trapped in the hallway when the school was locked. Douglas said she received a call from her daughter saying she heard shots.
“One of his friends sat by the door, he got shot in the arm, and then he and his friends ran. The phone got disconnected,” Douglas said. “I was on my way.”
Kuzka, the slain teacher, taught health at Central for 14 years and recently began coaching collegiate cross-country, her daughter said. “He was definitely looking forward to retirement. She was close,” Abe Kuzka said.
According to Kuzka’s biography on the school’s website, she was a married mother of five and grandmother of seven. She was an avid bike rider and was part of the 1979 national championship field hockey team at what is now Missouri State University.
“I can’t imagine myself in any career other than teaching,” Kuzka wrote on the website. “In high school, I taught swimming lessons at the YMCA. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
The shooting shook St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones.
“Our kids shouldn’t have to experience this,” Jones said. “They don’t have to go through active shooter exercises if anything. And unfortunately that happened today.”
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said more action is needed to stop gun violence.
“Every day that the Senate fails to send an assault weapons ban to the president’s desk or waits to take another common sense action, it’s too late for families and communities affected by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said.
The school district placed all of its schools on lockdown for the rest of the day, and canceled all after-school activities, including sports.