Teachers describe close calls with St. Louis school shooter during deadly rampage: "He let me go"
Two teachers recounted near-miss confrontations with a teen gunman who broke into a St. Louis high school Monday morning, fatally shooting a teacher and a teenage girl, and wounding seven others before police killed him in an exchange of gunfire.
Police Chief Michael Sack identified the shooter as 19-year-old Orlando Harris, who graduated from the school last year. Sack said the motive was still under investigation but "there's suspicions that there may be some mental illness that he's experiencing."
Ashley Rench told The Associated Press she was teaching advanced algebra to sophomores when she heard a loud bang. Then the school intercom announced, "Miles Davis is in the building."
"That's our code for intruder," Rench said.
Students took refuge beneath her desk and behind her podium as the shooter tried to enter the locked classroom before giving up and going away.
"I don't know why he chose not to break my windows or shoot through the lock," she said.
Raymond Parks was about to teach a dance class for juniors when a man dressed in black approached. At first, Parks thought the man was carrying a broom or a stick. Then he realized it was a gun.
"The kids started screaming and running and scrambling. He walked directly into the two doors and pointed the gun over at me because I was in the front," Parks said.
For some unknown reason, Parks said, the shooter pointed the gun away from him and let Parks and the dozen or so students leave the room. "That's what I don't understand. He let me go," Parks said.
Janay Douglas' 15-year-old daughter got stuck in a hallway when the school was locked down. Douglas said she received a call from her daughter letting her know she heard shots.
"One of her friends busted through the door, he was shot in the hand, and then her and her friends just took off running. The phone disconnected," Douglas said. "I was on my way."
One of the victims killed in the shooting was Jean Kirk Kuczka, a teacher at the high school, her daughter, Abbey, confirmed to CBS News. Kuczka had been teaching health, personal finance and physical education at the school since 2008, according to the school's website.
Her daughter told CBS News that Kuczka loved the Peanuts character Snoopy, and that she was also a passionate fundraiser for efforts to find a cure for diabetes — which her son with diagnosed with at the age of 10, according to the school's website.
Kuczka wrote on the school's website that she knew she wanted to be a teacher since she was in high school.
"I cannot imagine myself in any other career but teaching," Kucza wrote. "In high school, I taught swimming lessons at the YMCA. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be a teacher."
The other deceased victim was not identified, but was described by Sack as a 16-year-old Black female. St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said Monday night that she was a student.
The gunman had nearly a dozen high-capacity magazines of ammunition with him, Sack said. "That's a whole lot of victims. ... It's certainly tragic for the families and it's tragic for our community, but it could have been a whole lot worse."
St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said seven security guards were in the school at the time of the attack, each stationed at an entrance of the locked building. One of the guards noticed the gunman trying unsuccessfully to get in at a locked door. The guard notified school officials, who contacted police.
Sack said the call about a shooter came in at 9:11 a.m. and officers arrived and had the gunman down by 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, Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Central has 383 students, Collegiate 336.
Monday's school shooting was the 40th this year resulting in injuries or death, according to a tally by Education Week - the most in any year since it began tracking shootings in 2018. The deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, when 19 children and two teachers died. Monday's St. Louis shooting came on the same day a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a school shooting that killed four students in December 2021.