Police: School shooter asked victim to shoot him

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio teen accused of shooting a classmate in school expressed surprise his victim was still alive, apologized and then turned his shotgun around and asked the student to kill him, according to a police account of the attack released Wednesday.

“You’re not dead!” the suspect said, after seeing that Logan Cole hadn’t been killed, according to the report.

The suspect then placed the barrel of the 12-gauge shotgun against his forehead and the trigger assembly toward 16-year-old Cole and asked him to shoot him, the report said.

The report says Cole refused to shoot his attacker Friday at the high school in in West Liberty, about 55 miles northwest of Columbus.

The 17-year-old suspect said he acted alone and didn’t involve anyone else, according to an interview with the suspect by Sheriff’s Det. Glenn Kemp.

The Associated Press isn’t naming the suspect because it generally doesn’t identify juveniles charged with crimes.

Cole is being treated at the Columbus children’s hospital, where he has been in stable condition.

The suspect has been charged in juvenile court with several charges including attempted murder, felonious assault and improperly discharging a weapon at or into a school safety zone. A second student also was slightly injured when he was struck by a shot from the gun, the report said.

Champaign County Prosecutor Kevin Talebi has filed a motion to transfer the case to adult court.

The report provided the following timeline of events:

— The suspect said “he did not sleep during the night time hours” and around 5:42 a.m. Friday he sneaked into his mother’s bathroom after seeing her go outside to smoke a cigarette. Inside, he and took the shotgun, a Christmas gift from his grandparents two years ago, from its plastic case.

— About an hour later the suspect went into his mother’s bedroom while she was showering and retrieved ammunition for the gun from a bedroom closet. He used a screwdriver from his stepfather’s tool box in the basement to dissemble the shotgun before placing it in a school bag along with a vest, mask and ammunition, which he placed in the vest’s pockets.

— The suspect and his sister drove to the school, which sits surrounded by fields about two miles from the village of West Liberty, at about 6:50 a.m. The suspect’s sister was not aware of his plans.

— Inside a boys bathroom, the suspect waited until a student inside left, then entered a stall and assembled the weapon.

— After assembling the shotgun, the suspect “said the Lord’s prayer,” and donned a camouflage vest and a homemade mask with an anarchy symbol and an expletive written on it.

— The suspect waited several minutes until the first class bell rang before he emerged, saw Cole and shot him with two rounds. The suspect then fired shots into the windows of two classrooms where he retreated to the bathroom and found Cole still alive.

— Hearing principals’ voices in the hall, the suspect went back into the bathroom stall, took off the vest, put the shotgun on the floor and kicked the gun away.

— A principal who found the suspect in the bathroom pressed him facedown onto the floor. The suspect told the principal he was a screw-up, using an expletive. The principal held the suspect down until police arrived.

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press