The gun used by a former student who opened fire Monday at a St. Louis high school was previously removed from his home at the request of his mother, authorities said.
On Oct. 15, more than a week before a teacher and a student were killed in the shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, St. Louis police received a call for a “domestic disturbance” at the suspect’s home, according to a Wednesday statement from the department.
The suspect’s mother found an AR-15-style rifle in the family’s home and contacted St. Louis police to have it removed, interim St. Louis police Commissioner Michael Sack said at a Wednesday news conference.
Police “determined at that time the suspect was lawfully permitted to possess the firearm,” according to the statement. The family worked with police to transfer the gun to a third party known to the family, Sack said.
The firearm that was removed was the same one used in Monday’s shooting that left two people dead and seven others injured, police confirmed in the statement.
“The mother wanted it out of the house, so they facilitated it,” Sack said. “…How he acquired it after that, we don’t know. We’re looking into it.”
While the suspected gunman’s family was “aware” he had obtained the gun, it was unclear when and how he got it, Sack said, adding that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the gun sale. Police identified the suspect as Orlando Harris, 19.
Family cooperating with investigation, police official says
The suspect’s mother “has been fully cooperative” in the investigation into the shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and is “heartbroken for the families in this incident, for the school and the alumni,” Sack said Wednesday.
An investigator who interviewed the mother and her adult daughter Wednesday said the family was aware of the suspect’s mental health issues and “appears to have done everything they could have possibly done to try to help,” including monitoring his mail and getting him back into therapy and on medication, Sack said.
PREVIOUS UPDATES:New details emerge after shooting at St. Louis high school leaves 2 dead, 7 injured
Threats spike after shooting
St. Louis area schools have seen a spike in threats following the shooting, a common occurrence after school shootings, Jay Greenberg, special agent in charge of the St. Louis field office of the FBI, said at the news conference.
Greenberg said these threats are “typically easy to investigate” and police are able to quickly find who is making them. But because of the volume of the threats, authorities have increased police presence in schools across the St. Louis metro area as a precaution.
While Greenberg said he does not believe there are any credible threats at this time, he worries about them “leading to additional trauma for our students.”
Who were the victims?
Officials and family members identified the victims as Barbara Kuczka, 61, and Alexzandria Bell, 15.
Kuczka, a health teacher at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, realized she wanted to be a teacher in high school when she taught swimming lessons at the YMCA, according to her teacher biograph on the school’s website.
Kuczka graduated in 1979 from Lindbergh High School in St. Louis, where she was a field hockey star, and attended Southwest Missouri State University, now known as Missouri State, on a field hockey scholarship, according to the bio.
Kuczka lived in Dittmer, Missouri with her husband. She had five children and seven grandchildren.
Alexzandria was looking forward to a trip to Los Angeles to celebrate her Sweet 16 before she died, her father, Andre Bell, told CNN affiliate KSDK.
Her father said Alexzandria was a member of the Saint Louis Dazzling Diamonds dance group. She was funny, joyful and always made other people’s days better, he said.
“No matter how I felt, I could always talk to her, and it was alright,” Bell said. “That was my baby.”
Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.