Jeff Weise

Jeffrey James Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) was a high school student of Red Lake, Minnesota responsible for the shooting deaths of his grandfather and his grandfather's partner and the Red Lake High School massacre, a school shooting in which he killed seven people and injured more than a dozen others before committing suicide.

He left many postings across the World Wide Web on websites such as nazi.org, offering an unusual level of public insight into his thoughts and the hardships in his life that led to his depression and fascination with dark imagery in the months and years prior to the shootings.

Background

Weise was a Ojibwa (Chippewa) Native American who lived on the Red Lake reservation in north-central Minnesota with his 58-year old grandfather, Red Lake Police Department officer Daryl "Dash" Lussier, Sr. Weise's father, Daryl "Baby Dash" Lussier, Jr., had committed suicide in July 1997 after a day-long police standoff. The senior Lussier had attempted to intervene in that event, but was unable to bring the standoff to a peaceful end.

Joanne Weise, Jeff's mother, alleged to be a heavy drinker, suffered brain damage in a 1999 alcohol-related car accident. As a result, she was forced to live in a nursing home in Minneapolis as of 2005. Jeff had been living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with his mother and two aunts, but was forced to move back to the reservation after the accident happened.

Weise expressed frustration with being forced back to the Red Lake region and was considered an outsider by many there. Troublesome behaviour eventually led the school to put him in a home schooling program in 2004. He was apparently taking medication for depression and was seeing a therapist. He also apparently inflicted injuries upon himself and, according to a schoolmate, attempted suicide in early 2005.

March 21, 2005

On March 21, 2005 Weise killed a total of ten people. First he killed his grandfather and grandfather's wife, 32-year old Michelle Sigana, who was his grandfather's police force partner. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake High School, including a teacher and a security guard. As many as 15 others were wounded in the school shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise committed suicide. Two handguns and a shotgun that belonged to his grandfather were believed to be used in the shootings.

The incident apparently began at home in the afternoon when Weise allegedly killed his grandfather and Sigana. Weise then drove a patrol vehicle (a truck or SUV believed to be his grandfather's) to the high school, propelling it into the building at around 3:00 p.m. CST. Wearing a reservation-police-issued bulletproof vest, likely taken from the stolen reservation police patrol vehicle, he shot the third victim (the security guard) immediately upon arriving at the school.

When the police first arrived, Weise briefly opened fire on them before proceeding into the building. Once in there, he was said to be "waving and smiling" as he shot students at random. An attempt to break into an English classroom was thwarted by a quick-thinking teacher who had taken the precaution to lock the door. This execution of one of the safety procedures established by the school (most likely as a result of the Columbine massacre of 1999) meant that many lives were saved.

Weise and the Internet

Weise allegedly had a history of trouble at the school, including fist-fights. Although no clear motive has been attributed to Weise's actions yet, he was described as a loner, who was bullied – possibly due to his appearance. He was known to wear a dark trench coat to school all year round; he was also known to have a notebook into which he drew what has been described as "evil and dark... stuff." [1]. Weise also had a fascination with the swastika, a symbol both Native Americans and Nazis have used.

Weise posted frequently on Internet boards dealing with the subject of zombies, under the pseudonym "Blades11". In a short story he published in late 2003/early 2004, titled "Surviving the Dead", he includes a detailed description of a school massacre from a victim's perspective, combining it with the subject of zombies. The story is bloody and crude in content and spelling, but the language style is articulate beyond his age at the time. (Note: Grover's Mill, the town in Weise's story, was the town in a series of movies called Critters about small furry monsters that devoured humans.)

Another website he frequented was The Official Mars Website, the online headquarters for the San Francisco, Bay Area Horrorcore rapper Mars, where the users are encouraged to post about music, murder, and suicide on its forums. Weise was described by friends and family as an obsessed fan of Horrorcore music, and Mars, whose upcoming international release is entitled "Some Girls Deserve To Die".

Weise also created violent Flash animations and posted them on the Internet (including Newgrounds) using the alias "Regret". One animation entitled Target Practice[2] depicts an individual who shoots three people with an assault rifle, blows up a police car with a grenade, then shoots a Ku Klux Klan member. It ends when the character uses a handgun to shoot himself in the head. The animation is accompanied by the sounds of gunfire. [3] It is also noteworthy that an early reviewer of the animation on newgrounds remarked that Weise 'needed help badly'. To which he replied that there was a difference between fantasy and reality, and that the cartoon meant nothing. Weise's Newgrounds profile also noted that one of his favorite movies was "Elephant", a film based on the events of the Columbine High School Massacre.

Weise is also believed to have posted messages on the Neo-Nazi Internet forum of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party under the aliases NativeNazi and Todesengel (German for "angel of death"). The posts revealed an admiration for the ideas of Adolf Hitler, and interests in persuading other Native Americans as to the merits of those ideas. On one occasion, he fought with a pupil whom he referred to as a "Communist". He also alleged that the school was warned that someone was going to "shoot up" the school on April 20, the birthday of Adolf Hitler and the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, and that the school authorities "pinned" the threat on him.

In one post, dated July 13, 2004, he claimed:

As a result of cultural dominance and interracial mixing there is [sic] barely any full blooded Natives left. Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run rampant...Under a National Socialist government, things for us would improve vastly… and that is why I am pro-Nazi. [4]

Another post read: "I try not to be aggressive in most situations, I'll use force if I have to, but I'm not about to go out and pick a fight. I'm mostly defensive, I'll defend myself if someone tries something but other than that I'm a peaceful person." The posts were dated 10 months prior to the shooting, and as such it is not yet known if they are entirely relevant in understanding Weise's state of mind.

A LiveJournal account apparently created by Weise contained just three entries from December 2004 through January 2005. He chose three icons for the account: one of the band Nirvana prominently featuring Kurt Cobain, one with the logo for the band Rammstein, and another of himself. The weblog was customized to be rendered in black and white, and Weise expressed dark feelings in his few writings. He described himself on his user info page as "nothin' but your average Native American stoner" and mentioned that he used marijuana.

Many Neo-Nazis reject Weise and his claims. While it is possible for a Native American to admire National Socialism ideology and philosophy, the vast majority of Neo-Nazi groups only support white nationalism.

Aftermath

March 25, 2005: Armed security guards and metal detectors were stationed at all entrances of the school. The Red Lake Tribe was outraged that President Bush had failed to send timely condolences; the tribe did not receieve official condolences until three days after the massacre.

March 29, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Louis Jourdain, son of Floyd "Buck" Jourdain Jr., was accused of assisting in the planning of the shooting, and was subsequently arrested on the suspicion of conspiracy to murder. At least a dozen other students were believed to have heard of the attack prior to its occurrence. The school itself was temporarily shut down and computers therein were seized. During this time, a makeshift memorial was set up in front of the school, made up of flowers, dolls, cards and candles.

April 9, 2005: Red Lake High School was searched after police received information that guns still remained in the school, ostensibly placed there by Jeff Weise.

References

• JeffWeise.com
• Jeff Weise's 30 second mass murder cartoon from 2004 (in Flash format)
• Seattle Times: 15-year-old shooter "seemed lost in life"
• Smoking Gun: School Killer's Animated Terror
• Story written by Weise, about a school massacre
• Chuck Haga, Howie Padilla, and Richard Meryhew (March 23, 2005). Jeff Weise: A mystery in a life full of hardship. Star Tribune.
• David Hanners and Beth Silva (March 24, 2005). Troubling Internet postings clash with family's view of a happy Weise. Saint Paul Pioneer Press.