Today’s “domestic terror” event involves a student who took his teacher and classmates “hostage”. Reports (still early) are that he ended up shooting himself and all the students were released.
The location of this event was Marinette, Wisconsin about 40 miles north of Green Bay. The clock is started to see how long it takes for the national media to discover and report the cultural background of the gunman. He’s probably a minor, so we may not find out at all.
The first report I heard had the detail (since scrubbed by editors) that the class was a Western Civilization class. Now what could possibly made a student mad?
The biggest new clue is the 15 year old student began this by shooting the film projector. One source describes it as “Greek Myths”, which is consistent with a Western Civilization class – the first report. The teacher is female. Apparently the student likes to hunt and fish, which would be typical in rural Wisconsin. He was a good student.
The other students were ordered to put their cell phones in a pile on the floor, but other than that, he didn’t demand anything of the other students or harm them. It took close to an hour for the principal to realize something was wrong when the students didn’t show up at their next class. He confronted the student with the gun and was not hurt, and immediately called 911.
The name of the teacher has been released – Valerie Burd.
Here is a picture of her with a class visiting the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Madison.
Samuel O Hengel, the 15 year old student has died.
I don’t know why he shot the projector. When I wasn’t so crazy about a class, I begged to watch a movie.
I wasn’t a big fan of Western Civilization either.
And what was the name of the movie?
One source said it was about Greek myths (presumably greek mythology). The projector as the target would seem to point to motive. He easily could have shot the teacher or other students. My theory is it was the Al Gore movie.
Let’s all say a prayer for the young man’s parents.