Red Lake Shootings

Minneapolis (AP) ― A tribal chairman's teenage son was sentenced for exchanging threatening messages with the gunman in last year's shootings on the Red Lake Indian reservation, but the closed hearing left victims' family members frustrated and looking for answers.

Louis Jourdain, 17, was sentenced Friday. His father, Floyd Jourdain Jr., would not disclose the nature of the sentence, but his comments suggested it wasn't severe.

"The judge's ruling will reflect what I've maintained all along ... my son is a good kid," the elder Jourdain said, adding that his son "feels extremely terrible about what happened at Red Lake."

Attorneys left the court without commenting. The juvenile proceeding was closed to the public despite efforts by both victims and the media for access.

"It's par for the course," Francis Brun, who lost his 28-year-old son Derrick in the shooting, said in a phone interview. "It's a double whammy for those of us that are victims, that have been denied the right to gather information about how our family member died and whether there was any evidence ... that may have given a rundown of Louie's involvement with (gunman) Jeff Weise."

Louis Jourdain admitted last fall that he made threatening interstate communications, a crime that can carry up to five years in prison.

As part of the plea deal, a charge of conspiracy to commit murder was dropped. Jourdain has been in custody since his arrest a week after the March 21 shootings.

The attack began at the home of Weise's grandfather, where Weise killed the older man and his companion. Weise then carried out the worst U.S. school shooting since Columbine, killing five students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High School before killing himself.

Floyd Jourdain said earlier that authorities examined hundreds of computer messages from his son, and said some of them may have been seen as threatening or inappropriate. He has said his son admitted to "wrongheaded and inappropriate use of the Internet, but he does not accept responsibility for the 10 lives lost at Red Lake on March 21 because he is not responsible."

A court docket released in November, some of it blacked out, said the younger Jourdain used a computer to conduct interstate communications that "could be taken by an objective observer as threatening" sometime between Jan. 1, 2003, and March 2005.

Prosecutors told family members of victims that they were prohibited from talking about the sentence, family members said. Some of those at the courthouse Friday directed their frustration at Floyd Jourdain, who isn't subject to any such restrictions.

"I don't understand why he can't come and tell us," said LeeAnn Thunder, whose son Steven was shot in the face in Weise's attack. "I mean, it was closed upstairs, but he's walking out right now, so why can't he tell us?"

Steven Cobenais, a sophomore, was in Minneapolis for a medical appointment to be fitted for a prosthetic eye. The 16-year-old said he held Louis Jourdain partly responsible for the shootings and hoped he would go to prison "because of what he did to us kids and all of our friends."

Brun, who said he is thinking about running against Floyd Jourdain in the next tribal election, said it's hard not to wonder just how much the chairman's son knew about Weise's plan.

"If somebody that could've prevented it by reporting it to proper officials ... Weise, he wouldn't be dead either. He would be in some treatment place getting the help that he needed," said Brun. "If that young boy would've come and told somebody, then maybe that tragic situation on 3-21 might have never happened."

On Friday, Floyd Jourdain said again that his son never meant to hurt anyone.

"This entire ordeal has been extremely difficult for my family and the Red Lake Band in general," he said.

Brun said he got a letter Thursday saying U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger would meet with the families of Weise's victims on Jan. 30 but wouldn't be able to disclose full details of the case against Jourdain. Only a limited number of direct family members would be allowed to attend.

Heffelfinger told The Associated Press the sentencing would not be revealed at that time, saying everything at Friday's hearing is confidential.

"The court has reminded the father that these are confidential matters, but the court has no authority over Chairman Jourdain," Heffelfinger said.

A law firm representing 10 families with members killed or injured in the shootings issued a statement condemning the lack of access to Jourdain's case, saying it was asking too much of those families to "blindly accept the outcome of a prosecution which was conducted entirely in secret."

In a ruling issued in December, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank barred victims' family members from the proceedings, saying that they were not direct "victims" or targets of Louis Jourdain's electronic communications, and that allowing them access would not be in the best interest of the juvenile.

He also said their questions about the shooting carried out by Weise would not be answered in Jourdain's proceedings.

Louis Jourdain's case was handled in federal court because the shootings happened on the Red Lake Band of Chippewa's reservation, which is sovereign territory.

(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)