Jan 31, 2006 11:16 pm US/Central
Officials Learn More About Red Lake Shooting
Red Lake, Minn. (AP) ―
Tribal and school officials met with U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger on Tuesday in the second of the prosecutor's closed gatherings about the investigation into the school shooting on the reservation last March.
Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise killed nine people -- including five students, a security guard and a teacher at Red Lake High School -- before committing suicide there on March 21. He also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend at their home on the northern Minnesota reservation.
Heffelfinger said news reports about his private meeting Monday in Bemidji, Minn. with relatives of the victims were accurate, including that as many as 39 people had some sort of advance knowledge of Weise's plans.
There was a wide range of knowledge within that group, Heffelfinger said, from hearsay to some who knew specifics but may not have believed that the teenager was going to carry out his plan.
Tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain -- whose 17-year-old son, Louis, was the only person prosecuted in the case, pleading guilty to exchanging threatening communications with Weise -- attended Tuesday's meeting at tribal headquarters.
The chairman would not comment about the situation of his son, who was prosecuted in juvenile court so most details, including his sentence, remain sealed.
Jourdain said he learned details about the case that he didn't know previously, but that there will always be lots of unanswered questions.
"I don't think there will ever be satisfaction with the level of knowledge of what happened here in Red Lake," he said. "I know there was a degree of confidentiality as far as court proceedings and those types of things were concerned. But overall, I think it's a start for us.
"There are no good feelings or people feeling happy or satisfied in any way. We just need to find out how to now begin the work and lay down the groundwork for preventing anything like this," he said.
Jourdain said the tribal leaders who attended the meeting would take some time to digest the information, and then share what they learned with all members.
Several tribal members who attended Monday's meeting expressed frustration about the limited
information Heffelfinger disclosed to them.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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