School shooter had made frequent threats

CLEVELAND (AP) ‘ Teased since kindergarten for his shabby clothes and odd behavior, one of the newest students at a downtown high school had made threats in front of students and teachers.

Yet Asa Coon was able to roam the halls at SuccessTech Academy alternative school Wednesday, firing shots that wounded four people, with security unchanged and officials a day later trying to figure out how he got inside.

The 14-year-old appeared to be both aggressor and victim.

Coon was the subject of a juvenile court neglect case at age 4, came from a poor home and routinely showed up to school unkempt. He also had been suspended for fighting, and classmates say he had made threats, including to blow up the school and stab everybody.

‘When he got suspended, he was like ‘I got something for you all,’ said student Frances Henderson, who fought bitterly with Coon.

‘That child was tormented from his classmates every single day,’ Christina Burns, who volunteered at one of Coon’s schools, said Thursday. ‘Everybody’s making him out to be a devil, a demon, but nobody knows what was going on with this kid.’

Armed with two revolvers and wearing black clothing, black-painted fingernails and a Marilyn Manson T-shirt ‘ the shock rocker Coon said he chose to worship instead of God ‘ Coon shot two teachers and two students. One teacher remained hospitalized Thursday.

Then the freshman, who court records show had threatened suicide previously, shot himself behind his right ear with a .38-caliber shot shell loaded with pellets. Coroner Frank Miller ruled the death a suicide.

Despite 26 security cameras, the district wasn’t able to say how Coon was able to enter. Police were checking the video Thursday for clues. A classmate could have let him in a back door, police Chief Michael McGrath said.

Students said metal detectors were intermittently used. None were operating on Wednesday, two days after Coon had been suspended.

McGrath, asked how Coon got past an armed security guard or whether warnings signs were missed, said he couldn’t comment. He said police work with school officials on the issue of where to locate metal detectors, based in part on crime in schools.

Charles Blackwell, president of SuccessTech’s student-parent organization, said the position of a second security guard had been eliminated because of lack of money.

Coon had mental health problems, spent time in two juvenile facilities and threatened to kill himself while in a mental health facility, according to juvenile court records obtained by The Plain Dealer.

When he was 12, Coon was charged in juvenile court with domestic violence, accused of slapping his mother and calling her a vulgar name. He was also suspended from school last year for attempting to physically harm a student, the newspaper said.

Rasheem Smith, 15, said on CBS’ ‘Early Show’ that despite their warnings about Coon, principal Johneita Durant told them she was too busy.

‘I told my friends in the class that he had a gun and stuff,’ said Smith. ‘We talked to the principal. She would try to get us all in the office, but it would always be too busy for it to happen.’

Responding on the show, schools CEO Eugene Sanders said the district would investigate. A message left at Durant’s office was not returned. A phone call to her home was not answered.

Coon was a bright child who was unable to focus on his schoolwork, said Burns, recalling ‘his shabby shoes and raggedy coat ‘ didn’t brush his hair, take a washcloth across his face, hair sticking up all over the place.’

Coon, who is white, stood out in a school that is 85 percent black for wearing a black trench coat, black boots, a dog collar, chains and a glove.

A preliminary investigation found that Coon entered the school in a five-story converted office building, and went to a fourth-floor bathroom, where he changed clothes and took items out of a duffel bag, possibly the weapons, and put them on his body, McGrath said.

Coon went to a classroom and shot a teacher, then, while looking for a second teacher, fired additional shots, wounding a teacher who was trying to help students get to another floor.

Police found the two guns, .22- and .38-caliber revolvers, a box of ammunition for each and three tactical folding knives, all on or near Coon’s body, the police chief said.