ST. LOUIS — A teenage girl and a health teacher were shot to death and six others were injured Monday morning at Central Visual & Performing Arts High School in south St. Louis. Police confronted the gunman inside the school and killed him.
The suspect, a man not yet identified, was about 20. Police haven't said what connection, if any, he had to the school.
One survivor heard him say he was "tired of everybody" in the school. His gun jammed at one point, giving kids time to escape.
Authorities have not released the names of the woman and the teenage girl who died. But relatives of the woman identified her to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as 61-year-old Jean Kuczka, who taught health and physical education. Kuczka lived in Dittmer, Missouri.
A gunman came into Kuczka's classroom, Room 323, and Kuczka went in front of him to protect the students, her daughter was told. It wasn't immediately clear why the gunman went to her room or if he targeted a certain teacher.
Those who survived suffered injuries ranging from gunshot wounds to shrapnel, St. Louis police Chief Michael Sack said.
Sack refused to say how the gunman got into the building. All doors were locked at the school on Monday morning, Sack said. The building has metal detectors and seven security officers.
There are two magnet high schools on the campus — Central Visual & Performing Arts, with about 400 students, and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, with about 300 students.
Sack said police officers exchanged gunfire with the man on the school's third floor, killing him. No officers were hurt. Sack said police went inside "without hesitation, went directly to the sound of gunfire."
Sack said that kind of response and confrontation "is the expectation" in law enforcement. He commended the officers for what he called "an amazing job." He said a security officer saw the man trying to enter the building, and police were alerted.
David Williams, a math teacher at the school, said the school principal came over the loudspeaker around 9 a.m. and said the code phrase that indicates a school shooter in the building. Williams heard multiple shots outside his classroom, and one of the windows on the classroom door was shot out. He said he then heard a man say, "You are all going to (expletive) die."
Police haven't said how many gunshots in all were fired inside the school. They said it lasted just a few minutes.
Elijah Pohlman, a 15-year-old sophomore, said it was chaos when the code came over the loudspeaker. He said he texted his parents that he loved them, then heard four gunshots and took off running.
“I don’t even know how to deal with it," he said. "I’m scared.”
Raymond J. Parks, a dance teacher at the school, said he was about to teach a ballet class when he saw a man wearing all black with a long gun out of the corner of his eye. Parks said the man pointed the gun at him but did not fire for some reason.
Taniya Gholston, 16, was in the dance class. She said she did not recognize the man. He looked too old to be a student, she said.
"He said like, 'I'm tired of this damn school' and 'I'm tired of everybody in this damn school,'" she added.
Taniya said the shooter's gun eventually jammed and that she was able to run for safety. Taniya was trembling as she recounted, with her mother's permission, the events to a Post-Dispatch reporter. Her mother stood with Taniya as she spoke.
"I'm glad I made it out because his gun got jammed," Taniya said. "We saw blood on the floor."
Ranaiyah Cole was in the dance class too, stretching, when she heard a gunshot.
"We hid in a corner behind a mat," said Ranaiyah, 16.
As she huddled behind the large rolled-up mat, Ranaiyah used mirrors surrounding her to try to get a glimpse of the gunman. He wore black clothing, but Ranaiyah didn't see his face. She saw him point a large gun at her teacher.
Once the gunman ran off, Ranaiyah and her classmates darted out of the school and to a vacant Walgreens building.
Nylah Jones, a ninth grader at the school, said she was in math class when the shooter fired into the room from the hallway but could not get into the classroom. Students piled into the corner of the room and tried not to move as the shooter banged on the door, she said.
Ryane Owens, 18, a senior at CVPA, said students "thought it was a drill at first. Then we heard noises."
"Once you heard the boom," said teacher Michael De Filippo, "all the chuckling and laughing in the back of the room stopped."
Taniya Lumpkin was in speech and debate class at the time. She said a staff member told them to close and lock the door as they do for an intruder drill, but they "didn't know if it was real or not."
“Next thing you know, we just heard gunshots,” Taniya said. First single shots rang out, then multiple, then single again, she said.
Ja'miah Hampton, 16, was in vocal class on the fourth floor of the building when she heard gunshots on the third floor. "I heard one big one, and then there were so many I stopped counting," she said. "I'm confused why people are so cruel."
Dakota Willard, 14, who attends Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience — also housed in the CVPA building — said he saw a girl lying at the end of a hallway that joins the two schools.
“What I saw was traumatizing,” Willard said. “I’m OK. I don’t need any special help.”
Tonya Neal, a certified nursing assistant at SLU Hospital, said she has a daughter and a niece who attend school there. At 9:19 a.m., she received a text from her daughter that read, “Mom, I love you.”
She didn't realize until later that there was an active shooter at the school. She said her daughter and niece are safe.
By 9:30 a.m., the entire area was blocked off by police, ambulances and a SWAT van. Students and staff streamed from the school with hands in the air, filing up Hereford Street toward the Schnucks on Arsenal, where hundreds of evacuees gathered.
Hundreds of people gathered in the Schnucks parking lot, where students and their parents were hugging each other.
One boy was consoling his mother. “I’m glad it’s over. My friends are alive. It’s OK, Mom. It’s OK, I’m here,” he said.
Police and public officials held a news conference Monday morning to announce the latest in the investigation. Mayor Tishaura Jones and U.S. Rep. Cori Bush both spoke.
"It's so unfair," Jones said. "I'm heartbroken for these families. Our children shouldn't have to experience this."
Bush said it is vital to get help if you need it in the shooting's aftermath: "If you don't know who to talk to, you can call our office," she said. "It's OK to not be OK."
Jones and several parents commended the police response.
CVPA was Southwest High School for decades until 1992.
Kuczka was the mother of five children, including a son who is a Eureka police officer.
Kuczka graduated from Lindbergh High School in 1979. She attended Southwest Missouri State University, now Missouri State, on a field hockey scholarship, and she was a member of the 1979 National Championship team.
She earned a bachelor's degree and taught PE at Seven Holy Founders in Affton for 16 years. She later taught physical education at Carr Lane in the St. Louis Public Schools, then transferred to Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in 2008. The school website says she has taught health, personal finance and physical education.
"My mom loved kids," her daughter Abbey Kuczka said. "She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom because a lot of them didn't have a good home life."
Kuczka recently began coaching cross country at Collegiate, a magnet school within the St. Louis public school system.
"This was her first year of empty-nesting, and she was looking for something extra to do," Abbey Kuczka said. "She was definitely looking forward to retirement though. She was close."
Abbey Kuczka said her mother mentioned security at the high school last semester, telling relatives that a student from another school brought a gun into the building.
"She mentioned that, but other than that, she didn't really think anything" about safety concerns, her daughter said. "I mean, I think people think it will never happen to them."
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