Angel of Death: Student kills nine in shooting rampage

A STUDENT who killed nine people and himself on a Minnesota Indian reservation identified himself as an “angel of death” and a “NativeNazi” on internet postings, a US newspaper reported yesterday.

Angel of Death: Student kills nine in shooting rampage

Officials sealed off the remote town of Red Lake, 60 miles south of Canada while they investigated Monday's bloodbath, the worst US school shooting since the 1999 Columbine massacre.

Floyd Jourdain Jr, chairman of the Red Lake Indian council, said the tragedy was a dark day for the tribe.

The killer was Red Lake High School student Jeff Weise, said witnesses and school officials.

Weise, 17, had identified himself in internet site postings as "Todesengel", German for "angel of death" and "NativeNazi", the St Paul Pioneer Press said.

He also claimed to have been questioned by police in 2004 about an alleged plot to shoot up the school on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday, but said he had had nothing to do with that, the report said.

"I guess I've always carried a natural admiration for Hitler and his ideals, and his courage to take on larger nations," the newspaper quoted Weise as saying in one forum used by neo-Nazis.

Weise began his rampage by shooting dead his grandfather, officer Daryl 'Dash' Lussier, and Mr Lussier's girlfriend.

He then drove to the school where he killed a male security guard, a teacher and five students before taking his own life, the FBI said.

"One of the students told me he pointed his gun at a boy and then changed his mind, smiled, waved at him, and shot somebody else," said reporter Molly Miron.

Police, alerted when students used mobile phones to call for help, said they exchanged gunfire with Weise, who ducked into a classroom and shot himself.

It was the deadliest US school shooting since the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in which 14 students including the two killers and a teacher died. The Minnesota reservation is controlled by the Ojibwa tribe, commonly known as the Chippewa, which says it has roughly 10,000 members.

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