Prosecutor: Ohio shooting suspect is ‘not well’

T.J. Lane, a sus­pect in Monday’s shoot­ing of five stu­dents at Chardon High School is taken into juve­nile court by Geauga County deputies in Chardon, Ohio Tues­day, Feb. 28, 2012. Three of the five stu­dents wounded in the attacks have since died. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

KEVIN BEGOS, THOMAS J. SHEERAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHARDON — The Ohio teenager accused of killing three stu­dents in a shoot­ing ram­page in a high school cafe­te­ria chose his vic­tims at ran­dom and is “some­one who’s not well,” a pros­e­cu­tor said Tues­day as the slightly built young man appeared in juve­nile court.

T.J. Lane, 17, admit­ted tak­ing a .22-caliber pis­tol and a knife to Chardon High and fir­ing 10 shots at a group of stu­dents sit­ting at a cafe­te­ria table Mon­day morn­ing, Pros­e­cu­tor David Joyce said. He said Lane didn’t know the victims.

Lane will prob­a­bly be charged with three counts of aggra­vated mur­der and other offenses, the pros­e­cu­tor said.

A thin fig­ure with short dark hair, Lane seemed small next to the sheriff’s deputies who led him into court, and said lit­tle more than “Yes, sir” in response to ques­tions from the judge.

His face twitched lightly while the pros­e­cu­tor recounted the attack, and he snif­fled and half-closed his eyes as he left the court­room under guard.

The hear­ing came hours after the death toll rose to three, and as school­mates and towns­peo­ple grap­pled with the tragedy and won­dered what could have set off Lane, a young man described by other stu­dents as extremely quiet, with few if any friends.

The court appear­ance did lit­tle to solve the mys­tery. After­ward, though, the pros­e­cu­tor appeared to rule out rumors and spec­u­la­tion that the gun­man lashed out after being bul­lied or that the shoot­ing had some­thing to do with drug-dealing.

“He chose his vic­tims at ran­dom. This is not about bul­ly­ing. This is not about drugs,” Joyce said. “This is some­one who’s not well, and I’m sure in our court case we’ll prove that to all of your desires and we’ll make sure jus­tice is done here in this county.”

Joyce would not elab­o­rate. Both sides in the case are under a gag order imposed by the judge at the prosecutor’s request.

Lane’s grand­fa­ther, who has cus­tody of the teenager, and two aunts joined him in court; the women reached over and lightly embraced the grand­fa­ther as the hear­ing began.

Judge Tim­o­thy Gren­dell ordered the boy held for at least 15 days. Pros­e­cu­tors have until Thurs­day to bring charges against him and are expected to ask that he be tried as an adult. In addi­tion to impos­ing the gag order, the judge told the media not to pho­to­graph the boy’s face in court.

Mean­while, shaken res­i­dents extended con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of those killed and wounded at the 1,100-student high school, and grief coun­sel­ing was offered to stu­dents, staff and oth­ers at area schools.

All three of the dead were stu­dents, as are the two wounded victims.

“We’re not just any old place, Chardon,” Chardon School Super­in­ten­dent Joseph Bergant II said. “This is every place. As you’ve seen in the past, this can hap­pen any­where, proof of what we had yesterday.”

Author­i­ties on Tues­day said that Demetrius Hewlin, 16, and Rus­sell King Jr., 17, had died. Daniel Parmer­tor, 16, died shortly after the shooting.

Hewlin attended Chardon High. King and Parmer­tor were stu­dents at the Auburn Career Cen­ter, a voca­tional school, and were wait­ing in the Chardon High cafe­te­ria for their daily bus when they were shot.

Lane’s fam­ily is mourn­ing “this ter­ri­ble loss for their com­mu­nity,” Robert Fari­nacci, an attor­ney for Lane, said in a statement.

Fifteen-year-old Danny Komertz, who wit­nessed the shoot­ing, said it appeared that the gun­man sin­gled out a group of stu­dents sit­ting together. He said Lane was known as an out­cast who had appar­ently been bul­lied. But other stu­dents dis­puted that.

Fari­nacci told WKYC-TV that Lane “pretty much sticks to him­self but does have some friends and has never been in trou­ble over any­thing that we know about.”

Lane did not attend Chardon High but waited there for the bus to Lake Acad­emy, a school for stu­dents with aca­d­e­mic or behav­ioral prob­lems. Author­i­ties would not say how and why he ended up at Lake Academy.

Stu­dent Nate Mueller said that he was at the table in the cafe­te­ria where the vic­tims were shot, and a bul­let grazed his ear. Mueller told The Plain Dealer that King — one of those killed — had recently started dat­ing Lane’s ex-girlfriend.

Lane “was silent the whole time,” Mueller said. “That’s what made it so random.”

Kala Day, 18, said she rode the morn­ing school bus with Lane and knew the victims.

“He always sat by him­self and like looked out the win­dow. So I sat with him a few times, because I felt bad for the kid. He didn’t talk. He just stared out the win­dow,” she said.

The shoot­ing sent stu­dents scream­ing from the build­ing in panic, and some of that chaos and fear was cap­tured in 911 record­ings released Tuesday.

“We just had a shoot­ing at our school. We need to get out of here. Oh, my god,” one cry­ing female caller told a dispatcher.

“Everyone’s run­ning away,” the caller added.

Another caller, a male stu­dent, instantly iden­ti­fied the gun­man as Thomas Lane, a stu­dent, and said he appeared to be shoot­ing at random.

“What was his beef with these kids? Do we know?” the dis­patcher asked.

“I have no idea,” he said, adding: “He’s very quiet and he doesn’t really talk to anyone.”

Frank Hall, an assis­tant high school foot­ball coach who has been hailed as a hero by stu­dents who say he chased the gun­man out of the cafe­te­ria, told a Cleve­land TV sta­tion that he couldn’t dis­cuss what hap­pened, but added: “I wish I could have done more.”

Posted by AP News on Feb 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.