CLEVELAND, Oct. 11, 2007
Ohio School Shooter Had Mental Problems
Cleveland High Schooler Warned Classmates Of Attack; Student's Brother Taken Away In Cuffs
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Asa Coon, pictured here in undated photos, shot and wounded four people before killing himself at SuccessTech Academy in downtown Cleveland. (Courtesy of The Plain Dealer)
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Stephen Coon, the brother of school shooter, Asa Coon, is taken into custody at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007. (AP)
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Students congregate outside the SuccessTech Academy, Oct. 10, 2007, in Cleveland. (AP)
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Court records show a troubled history of violence and anti-social behavior by 14-year-old Asa Coon. (WOIO)
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14-year-old Asa Coon killed himself after going on a shooting rampage inside an East Cleveland high school, shooting six people including three teachers, Oct. 10, 2007. (CBS)
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Play CBS Video Video Officials Warned Of Shooter School officials at Success Tech Academy were told of the dangers presented by Asa Coon before the 14-year-old freshman opened fire on campus, injuring four. Bianca Solorzano reports.
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Video Warnings Sent About Shooter "Only On The Web": Parents are demanding to know how a teen with a history of violence could bypass security to embark on a shooting rampage in a Cleveland high school. Bianca Solorzano reports.
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Video Student Shoots 5, Kills Self A suspended freshman brings a gun to school and injures 5 people before killing himself. Dean Reynolds has the latest.
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Photo Essay Cleveland School Shooting Gunman opens fire in high school before killing himself, 5 people hospitalized.
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Interactive Guns In America State-by-state gun laws and death rates, maps of recent school and workplace shootings and facts on who's at risk.
Officers placed Stephen Coon, 19, in the back of an unmarked car, then several officers went into the house. It was unclear why Coon was being taken into custody.
"Please have respect, I just lost my brother," Coon said as he was being escorted from the house.
Asa Coon, wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt, black jeans and black nail polish, opened fire with two revolvers on Wednesday, wounding two students and two teachers at SuccessTech Academy in downtown Cleveland. Coon, 14, had a history of mental problems and was known for cursing at teachers and bickering with students.
A fight with another student caught on a cell phone camera on Monday may have sent Coon over the edge, reports CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.
He was suspended for it and came back shooting two days later.
Students at the school had expressed their concerns about Coon. Rasheem Smith told CBS Early Show anchor Hannah Storm that the shooting may have been prevented, and that it was known Coon had a gun. "He was talking about doing it last week," he said.
"We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen," Smith said.
Eugene Sanders, CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, told Storm, "There is a record of the student in terms of certain challenges that he had and a record of certain support and help that he has received."
CBS affiliate WOIO investigative correspondent Carl Monday reports that official records detail a history of problems for the teenager, who doctors said exhibited bipolar tendencies.
All classes in the city school district were canceled Thursday, and counseling was to be available for students.
Coon, who was suspended Monday for fighting with a classmate and was under suspension at the time of the shootings, had warned classmates of an attack, but none took him seriously.
"When he got suspended, he was like `I got something for you all,'" said student Frances Henderson, who said she often got into arguments with Coon. "I guess this is what he had."
Coon, who was white, stood out in the predominantly black school for dressing in a goth style, wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains, she said.
Henderson, who is black, she said she didn't believe race played a role in the shootings.
"He's crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody," said Doneisha LeVert, 14. "We didn't think nothing of it."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Today the parents are not caring their kids.
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John
[url=http://www.addictionrecovery.net/ohio ]Addiction Recovery Ohio [/url] - Reply to this comment
- THE BOY HAD MENTAL ILLNESS,,,WHAT ABOUT OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS...DO THEY HAVE IT...I AM JUST A LAY PERSON. I KNOW MENTALLY ILL PERSONS THAT WOULD NEVER DO THIS. Let not jugde every one just cause that boy did what he did just cause he is not playing with a full deck of cards. If a mentally ill person does a crime then he/she does their time just as their non mentally ill peers does. That simple.
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- The people in the early 60s deinstutionised state hospitals. They left hospital and on the streets. I was a small kid then.
Today the parents are too busy to care what their kids are doing. They have Dr. medicate the kid. Never heard of it in my day. Too lazy ,parent rather be the kids'' friend. No sah. Mum used that line on me as adult. I stoped her. I don''t want ye to be my friend,yer a parent. - Reply to this comment
- Not excusing what he did--but THAT would be a very hard name to live with--especially in that group dynamic.
Posted by toldyouso21
Yeah, maybe it''s because nobody died but for some reason I find this kid oddly sympathetic - they showed a brief clip of his mom on CNN and she''s one COLD mofo, like dead in the eyes. Like unlike the Virginia Tech guy or the Columbine kids he didn''t have anybody. I feel like he never had a shot at life. And then I stop and wonder how many other kids are out there in this kind of freefall...occasionally you hear stories of people who grow up in similar circumstances and end up a success story, but it seems like it''s so rare they end up on Oprah as like a miracle story. Like how many kids grow up like this who maybe manifest their pain in other ways (like by joining gangs or getting addicted to drug or whatever) and what are there chances and is there anything anybody can do to improve their chances?
PS It''d be interesting to hear what the reporter thinks is the solution to ****''s ''mental problems''...does the reporter think he should have been forced to take medication? Or does the reporter think medication would contribute to suicidal and violent thoughts and tendencies? Does the reporter think kids like **** should be institutionalized? And at what point? And for how long? Puzzling-not a very solution-oriented perspective... - Reply to this comment
- I remember my Mum saying to me in the late 70s about visual games. I had a hand held baseball game I played. She said kids went in them places where they had them. I hated them as they were every where. I never played them. Now they have them on them game consoles..and on computer. The parents buy them for their kids. I have games on my computer that I installed . I like FATE. There are vistal games they ought not play. I love bowling and solitaire. There good games out there. They rather play the bad ones. I am 53.
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- Another Young Kid, and I''ll bet if they looked, they''d find he played Violent Shoot Em'' up Video Games offered by Playstation and X Box too !! Lets see if I get this straight now, we can''t have Playboy or Hustler out in the open, but we can allow our kids to play Violent Kill Em'' Shoot Em Video Games, did I miss something somewhere ???? Give me a break !
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- toldyouso21, Dear I know yer a learnt lady and yer being borned in the UK yer learnt the Queen''s english. I am just a Maine hillbilly. Having no idea of yer skin colour,I am white. I know what the word **** is and it is an awful word that is put in the same class of words as the N word. Sure the boy who is white must have been made fun of cause his family name. Poor kid. I got yer message if he been a girl. Forgive here there are some names that should be banned from being given as names as the bearer did not ask for the nasty remarks.
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- I''m sorry. I know this will sound really racist--but did anyone besides me notice the demographics that seemed to be at that school? Asa ****--a name like that in the middle of predominantly black kids? You know he probably had to hear jokes and be made fun of every day...
I am glad no one was killed besides the gunman, but seriously--when you think that "****" is also one of the derogatory names given to blacks, (almost as bad as the N word) it is small wonder that the kid may have had his back to the wall. Not excusing what he did--but THAT would be a very hard name to live with--especially in that group dynamic. The only thing worse would have been if he had been a girl--with the first name of Ima. Think about it. - Reply to this comment
- where the hell is the next MLK and Malcom X
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They, like John Lennon, have learned to keep their mouths shut now or risk being assassinated. - Reply to this comment
- johnny_chaos,
LOL - Reply to this comment
- whatithink, what do you expect from a white supremist following a jewish carpenter whose words were translated by an italian? guy was a ***, obviously looking for some kind of meaning in an otherwise useless life. kind of sums up the statement i keep making about racism. if you need to be "special" get your a$$ on the short bus.
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- Keithle1,
Your point? Only you and some like you have turned this into a race issue.
Yesterday when you thought he was black - the animal deserves to die.
Today when you find out he is white - the poor kid was picked on. - Reply to this comment
- Keithle1 - no *** sherlock. the only person this kid killed was white, uh, himself.
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- Before the sun rises tomorrow, black men will have killed more black men in this country than this white boy did.
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- johnny_chaos,
Although I agree with much of what you say, we are still victims of our history. It took 400 years to get into this mess. It will not change overnight.
I had a white person tell me once that it was okay for blacks to be slaves because of something written about Noah. It seems that the whole basis of his beliefs revolved around some curse in the Old Testament. I asked him if he was a Jew. He said he was a Christian (he hated Jews as well because of something with Jesus). Anyway, I wondered how a Christian could get stuck on some curse in the Old Testament. To me it seems that if Jesus came and absolved our sins/curses that should have also included Noah''s son Ham. So, even if the curse was true, which I don''t believe, but even if it was, then black slaves should only have been authorized until Jesus died at the cross. As we exist long after Jesus died at the cross, I think this curse should be irrelevant to a born-again Christian. That is, unless the born-again Christian is secondary to being a born-again capitalist. Then, the bible has very little to do with it and this curse is just a crutch to support one man''s abuse of another for profit. - Reply to this comment
- kailumego1,
Wow, that was deep and too true.
Many people say that slavery happened over 100 years ago. But the truth is what replaced it was FAR worse than slavery. At least during the time of slavery, the slave had some value to the slaveholder. After slavery ended, that value disappeared. The goal then was to import (via Ellis Island) as many whites as possible to rebalance the population (as black outnumbered whites in many parts of the country) and to forever keep a depressed, under-educated, under-paid, for-all-other-intents-and-purposes IGNORED black population (as it would have been against the constitution to do what the Nazis did in Germany). MLK and others shook that boat and many people hated him for it. In fact, if it hadn''t been for the 1960s at lot more people would be Democrats today. - Reply to this comment
- this is out of hand. racism is a personal problem. anyone that thinks that the kid who did the shooting was more or less justified because he was was white and the victims were black needs to have their heads beat until the stupid runs out. seriously, the nooses, the resurgance of redneck hatred and the total lack of leadership in both the white and black communitys is atrocious. where the hell is the next MLK and Malcom X (after Mecca?) Sharpton and Jackson go around making sucking sounds but dont offer much in the way of solutions. Rap music and radical white christianity fan the flames, and lazy losers can wrap themselves in cloaks of racial supremacy (whatever the he-ll that is). ignorant is ignorant, black, white or whatever. put down the crunk and the cross people, we all burn the same. push the button or learn to get along.
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- "He''s crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody," said Doneisha LeVert, 14. "We didn''t think nothing of it."
Bet they will NEXT TIME eh?
When are these idiots going to start taking these "pranks" and threats seriously?
Can people be THIS clueless even today??? - Reply to this comment
- "We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen," Smith said."
LOL bet they find time NOW.
"****, who was white, stood out in the predominantly black school for dressing in a goth style, wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar and chains"
Gee, theres a bunch of clues the dude was a mental case.
" In March 2006, **** was rushed to Metro Hospital following a suicide attempt. "
See? sometimes its best to let suicide attempts SUCCEED and not interfere with the person''s desire to kill themselves, in this case had he succeeded- this attack never would have happened. - Reply to this comment
- I don''t mean to be irreverent, but, Asa ****? Who names a child with a last name ****, Asa? I knew a kid named Reng Adjeng whose last name was Deng...why? No, the family was not Asian. Anyway, it''s way off topic, but I just can''t get over some of the names people come up with for their kids who have to deal with all the c...rap because of them.
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