The 19-year-old who killed two people in an October 2022 St. Louis school shooting had mentioned to a psychiatrist treating him for depression that he had briefly thought about shooting up his old school.
The shooting at the south St. Louis campus shared by Central Visual and Performing Arts and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience high schools left a teacher and student dead and nine others injured. Police killed the shooter, Orlando Harris, after he barricaded himself in a third-floor classroom.
The final police report on the shooting, released Monday, says the shooter told the psychiatrist, Dr. Hetal Patel, about his thoughts of violence at a session on Aug. 22, 2022. He was undergoing treatment after a July 2022 suicide attempt.
Patel told police that the shooter did not want to commit violence and had not put together a plan to carry out the threat. While she worked to teach the shooter to regulate his thoughts, she does not appear to have mentioned the comment to law enforcement.
However, mental health care providers are only allowed to break the confidentiality of their patients if there is a “likelihood of serious harm.” At the time, the shooter did not own a gun and had not put together any specific plans. He did not attend a September follow-up appointment with Patel.
The report makes clear that the shooter, who graduated from CVPA in 2021, had been struggling with his mental health. He had made multiple suicide attempts and had been in inpatient care. Coworkers at an assisted-living facility noted that he was often depressed and that his mood would change drastically when he was not on medication.
The shooter’s mother, Tanya Ward, told police that although he graduated on time, he did not appear to enjoy high school after a year of virtual education due to COVID. His sister, Tania Harris, said she noticed a change after his car was damaged in an accident.
A woman who worked with the shooter at a senior-living facility told police that she noticed a change in his personality after a friend and coworker was arrested in March 2021 and charged with murder. A jury found that friend guilty in April. Other coworkers said that the shooter had a “rough home life” with an emotionally abusive mother and that his family had not attended his graduation.
Just days before the shooting, the suspect’s family asked police to remove firearms from his mother’s house. But Missouri lacks a red flag law, which allows law enforcement to remove weapons from a person who is potentially a danger to themselves or others. Police could only suggest that he store the weapons at a storage facility.
Details of the shooting
The report also provides more information about the chaos that unfolded inside the schools during the shooter’s rampage.
Documents seized from the shooter’s car contained diagrams of the building, including notes that the gymnasium would be the first target. The notebook indicated that he would be targeting specific teachers and the LGBTQ community; it’s not known whether any of the victims belonged to that community.
Previously released video evidence showed the suspect using his weapon to shoot out glass at the entrance to the school on Arsenal Street. He then shot at the first security guard he encountered, Germaine Yancy.
Yancy immediately ran and told administrators, who broadcast over the intercom “Miles Davis is in the building” – code for an active shooter.
Alexzandria Bell, a 15-year-old sophomore at CVPA, was one of the first people shot. She was stretching in the dance studio with her classmates. Yancy would notice her fleeing from the direction of the dance studio and gym with her arm dangling at her side. Bell died of her injuries before medical personnel could enter the building. Many students who fled through the doors along Kemper Street, on the south side of the joint campus, would have seen her in the hallway.
Collegiate Principal Frederick Steele and a school security guard, Ericka Tippett, both attempted to help Bell. Tippett was with Bell when she died, then returned to the building to help clear classrooms.
The shooter focused most of his attention on two locations in the buildings – Room 215, which at the time was occupied by an English teacher, and Room 323, where Kuczka was teaching a health class. There were 17 students in Room 323 at the time; some escaped by jumping out windows, while at least two others remained inside until police cleared the room.
Students in Kuzcka’s class told police that the suspect shot at the door, unlocked it and stepped into the classroom. They told police the shooter said some variation of “you’re all going to die” before shooting Kuzcka.
The police report notes that a math teacher had previously occupied Kuzcka’s classroom. Ward, the shooter’s mother, told police that he had an altercation with a teacher just before graduation. Although Ward could not remember the teacher’s name, she said he was an academic teacher, possibly teaching science, math or history.
Police killed the shooter after a gunbattle in the school’s computer lab, where he had barricaded himself. One of the officers involved had a daughter at the school.
The first calls to dispatch about the shooter came in at 9:11 a.m. Police finished evacuating the school and turned the building over to the Force Investigative Unit by 10:45 am.
