The AR-15-style rifle used to kill two victims in the mass shooting at a St Louis high school was the very same firearm that was taken away from gunman Orlando Harris just days earlier, it has been revealed.
St Louis police confirmed on Wednesday night that the 19-year-old mass shooter – who was known to have mental health issues and whose mother feared he should not have a firearm – somehow got the gun back and used it to go on a shooting rampage in his former high school.
On the evening of 15 October, Harris’s mother had contacted law enforcement concerned after discovering a gun among her son’s possessions in their home.
She asked officers to remove it but, when officers arrived on the scene, they “determined at that time the suspect was lawfully permitted to posses the firearm”.
Instead, someone known to the family was contacted and they took possession of the firearm.
Somehow, Harris got the gun back.
Nine days later, he used that same gun to murder a student and a teacher inside the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School (CVPA) in St Louis, Missouri.
Alexzandria Bell, a 15-year-old 10th grade student, and Jean Kuczka, a 61-year-old health teacher, were killed in the attack.
Kuczka, a 20-year veteran educator looking forward to retirement, has been described as a charismatic and kind teacher who was always there for her students, one of her former pupils told The Independent. Meanwhile, Alexzandria has been remembered as an outgoing teenager with a passion for dancing.
Another seven victims aged 15 and 16 were also wounded in the attack, before Harris was shot dead by police eight minutes into the rampage.
It is not yet clear how Harris got his hands on the gun after it was taken from him – whether it was given back to him or he took it by force.
“While it is not yet clear when or how the suspect came to be in possession of the firearm after this incident, we can confirm that the firearm involved in this incident is the firearm used in the shooting Monday,” the police statement read.
An investigation is now under way to determine how it happened.
At a press conference earlier on Wednesday, St Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack said that the gun used in the attack was “believed to be” the same one taken from Harris days earlier.
Officials were waiting for confirmation from the ATF as to whether the serial numbers were a match.
Now, confirmation that it is the same firearm raises fresh questions as to how Harris was able to get his hands on the gun – after his family raised concerns to law enforcement and sought repeated mental health intervention for the troubled 19-year-old.
Police have praised the preventative steps taken by the gunman’s family prior to the attack and said that they are cooperating with the investigation.
“They contacted us, said that he had a firearm,” Commissioner Sack said.
“The mother at the time wanted it out of the house. The officers, in their response, handed it over to somebody else, an adult who was lawfully able to possess it.”
Harris was known to struggle with his mental health and his family sought mental health treatment and also had him committed him to a mental institution.
They would also search his room on occasion “because they were concerned” and monitored his mail and interactions with other people, said the police commissioner.
“They were constantly in touch with the medical providers who were providing medical care for him,” he said.
“I’ve got to give credit to the family. They made every effort that they felt that they reasonably could. And I think that’s why the mother is so heartbroken over the families that paid for his episode.”
He added: “Mental health is a difficult thing. It’s hard to tell when somebody who’s going to be violent, or act out, or if they’re just struggling, they’re depressed and they might self-harm.
“It’s just a terrible thing, and it’s hard to try and figure out what might have been in somebody’s mind.”
In a note left inside the gunman’s car, Harris said that he originally bought the AR-15-style rifle from a private dealer after he was rejected from a purchase at a gun show in St Charles County.
Harris also wrote how he felt it was the “perfect storm” for a mass shooting.
“I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never had a social life. I’ve been an isolated loner my entire life. This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter,” he wrote.
The note also detailed a list of other US school shootings, the names of the gunman in those cases and the number of victims killed, with Harris expressing his desire to be the next name on the list.
A map of the school was also found along with a manifesto revealing how he planned his attack.
In the wake of the massacre, police said that Harris could have killed hundreds in the attack, given the trove of ammunition he was carrying.
Commissioner Sack said at a press conference on Tuesday that the 19-year-old had at least 600 rounds of ammunition on his person at the time.
“This could have been a horrific scene. That’s a whole lot of victims there,” he said.
Harris had a list of intended targets in the massacre, investigators said.
It is unclear if any of the slain or surviving victims were on that list, but at least one teacher has revealed that Harris aimed his gun at them but refrained from pulling the trigger.
