Police Release Photos and Video Of Success Tech Shooting
Police Release Photos and Video Of Success Tech Shooting
October 25, 2007
CLEVELAND -- His face concealed by a white hooded sweat shirt, the determined student gunman climbed the enclosed staircase with his cache of weapons in a backpack, heading toward a shooting rampage against classmates and teachers. Strikingly clear photos pulled from surveillance cameras and released Thursday show Asa Coon as he moved around Success Tech Academy on Oct. 10, when he wounded two teachers and two high school classmates before killing himself. The initial scenes from the color cameras are a model of an orderly school day: The initial scenes show an orderly school day: students walking past posters heading to bright blue lockers and into classrooms as a janitor collects trash bags. Then Coon, 14, changes into a black T-shirt in a restroom and emerges with a .22 caliber revolver in one hand and a .38-caliber revolver in the other. With his arms extended at an angle, he points into one classroom, then another. Terror emerges in the staccato images of students seen from three cameras turning sharply away. One, arms flying, almost falls to his knees as he digs in his heels to flee. Math teacher David Kachadourian, 57, was shot first, out of view of the camera, while rushing his students to safety in a stairwell. Kachadourian, shot in the back, flees down one flight to the third floor, leaving a bloody trail. Four seconds later, images show Coon moving down another hallway, stopping to look into a classroom and disappearing from view for 18 seconds, long enough to shoot Michael Grassie, 42, who was flunking Coon in a history class. Coon, apparently looking for a third teacher, headed into a darkened laboratory where students were huddled under tables, Police Chief Michael McGrath said. At that point, he said, Coon apparently heard police sirens and moved down the hall to his suicide location. The rampage is recorded for 1 minute and 22 seconds from the time Coon left the restroom where he changed clothes and armed himself to the time he disappears from camera view, Stacho said. Final scenes show officers, weapons drawn, ducking into classrooms looking for the shooter. Coon's body was found in a corner room on the fourth floor of the school, which also houses administrative offices. Police Commander Ed Tomba said Thursday that anger over disciplinary issues may have prompted the shootings, but said the exact motive might never be known. Coon had been suspended for fighting days before the shooting. The number of shots fired wasn't determined and the weapons could not be traced, Tomba said. from the time Coon left the restroom where he changed clothes and armed himself to the time he disappears from camera view, said police Lt. Thomas Stacho. Final scenes show officers, weapons drawn, ducking into classrooms looking for the shooter. Coon's body was found in a corner room on the fourth floor of the school, which also houses administrative offices. Two still images as he crosses the camera view from left to right in a moment are the final record of his life. Authorities blamed the rampage on several possibilities, including Coon's anger over being suspended for fighting and his irritation over flunking a history course. Coon was a troubled, angry youth who had received the suspension just days before he returned to the school and opened fire. The video shows two of the four victims getting shot, according to a police analysis. The scenes are not overtly graphic because the violence is captured by cameras about 100 feet away. People deserve to know what happened, so we wanted to put the information out there," Stacho said. Police previously said that a review of security video shows Coon simply walked into the school carrying a bag. He passed a substitute armed security guard, who did not confront him. Two days after the shootings, schools CEO Eugene Sanders submitted a revised security plan to Mayor Frank Jackson that includes metal detectors and security guards in all of Cleveland's 110 school buildings. Each school also will be reviewed by a professional security firm. Police previously said that a review of security video shows Coon simply walked into the school carrying a bag. He passed a substitute armed security guard, who did not confront him.
