A solitary former student, armed to the teeth. The armed teenager who killed two people at his former high school in Missouri in the central United States on Monday was in possession of 600 bullets, local police said on Tuesday.
19-year-old Orlando Harris killed a sports teacher and a 16-year-old girl and injured seven others before being shot dead by law enforcement in St. Louis on Monday.
The teenager was armed with an AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle and in possession of several magazines strapped to his chest in addition to those he had stowed in his bag. “It appears he entered the building with over 600 rounds of ammunition on him,” local police chief Mike Sack said at a press conference on Tuesday. The responsiveness of the police officers, who said they arrived on the scene four minutes after an emergency call, made it possible to avoid an even more “horrible” tragedy.
“I have no friends, no family”
A letter found by the police in the shooter’s car set out the motivations for his attack. ” I have no friends. I have no family. I never had a girlfriend. I never had a social life. I’ve been lonely and isolated all my life,” he wrote in the document.
Joe Biden on Tuesday expressed his thoughts and those of his wife Jill to “all those affected by the senseless shooting in St. Louis.” “As we mourn (high school), we must take action, starting with banning assault rifles,” Trump tweeted.
Shootings, especially in schools, are a scourge in the United States. In May, a teenager killed 19 schoolchildren and two female teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Banned in 1994 along with other semi-automatic rifles, the AR-15 was authorized again in 2004 and has since been at the heart of the controversy for its use in numerous shootings, including that of Uvalde and Parkland.