Tuesday, March 22, 2005

More on the MN School Shooter

Reuters is reporting that the seventeen year old who shot and killed nine people plus himself was interested in supremacist ideas in Red Lake, Minnesota. It is important to remember that many of these shooters (Columbine shooters, McVeigh, and others) are lone wolf types who while they may be influenced by extremist ideas and groups are not well socialized into these groups; think of it as people in search of reasons to act violently.

A 17-year-old who killed nine people and himself on a Minnesota Indian reservation identified himself as an "angel of death" and a "NativeNazi" on Internet postings, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The shooter was Red Lake High School sophomore Jeff Weise, according to witnesses and school officials.

Weise identified himself in Internet site postings as "Todesengel," German for "angel of death" and "NativeNazi," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

He also claimed to have been questioned by police in 2004 about an alleged plot to shoot up the school on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday, but said he had nothing to do with that, the report said.

"I guess I've always carried a natural admiration for Hitler and his ideals, and his courage to take on larger nations," the newspaper quoted Weise as saying in one forum used by neo-Nazis.

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