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Cleveland school shooting video released          Send a link to a friend

[October 26, 2007]  CLEVELAND (AP) -- His face concealed by a white hooded sweat shirt, the student gunman climbs an enclosed staircase with his cache of weapons in a backpack, moments before opening fire on classmates and teachers.

Strikingly clear photos pulled from surveillance cameras and released Thursday show Asa Coon as he moved around SuccessTech Academy on Oct. 10, when he wounded two teachers and two high school classmates before killing himself.

The images show the hallway where students were shot: One is seen lying on the floor, the other is hidden behind a curve in the wall. The scenes are not overtly graphic because the violence is captured by cameras about 100 feet away.

The teacher shootings were inside classrooms, away from the hallway cameras.

"People deserve to know what happened, so we wanted to put the information out there," police Lt. Thomas Stacho said.

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.

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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.

School officials now plan to install metal detectors and security guards in all of Cleveland's 110 school buildings.

[Associated Press; by Thomas J. Sheeran]

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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