Jeff Weise

Jeffrey James "Jeff" Weise (August 8, 1988 – March 21, 2005) was an Ojibwe Native American adolescent, and a student at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake, Minnesota. He murdered nine people and wounded five others in a shooting spree on March 21, 2005, in the Red Lake Indian Reservation located in northwest Minnesota. Weise first murdered his grandfather and grandfather's girlfriend at his trailer home in Red Lake, an unarmed security guard, a teacher and five students at Red Lake Senior High School. The shooting ended when Weise committed suicide.

Life
Weise was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the only child to 21-year-old Daryl Allen "Baby Dash" Lussier, Jr., and 17-year-old Joanne Weise. His parents were an unmarried couple from the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, whom separated before he was born. When he was three months old, Joanne placed him in the care of Daryl and his girlfriend in Red Lake. When he was three years old, she reclaimed him and took him to live with her and her husband, Stuart DesJarlait, and their children, Daphne and Sebastian, in a mobile home in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. According to relatives, Joanne was a violent alcoholic, and Jeff endured physical and emotional abuse by his mother.

In July 1997, his father, Daryl Lussier, Jr., committed suicide via shotgun wound to the head, after a nine-hour standoff with the Red Lake Police Department in Red Lake. Daryl Lussier, Sr., had attempted to intervene in the event but failed to bring the standoff to a peaceful end.

In March 1999, Joanne Weise suffered severe brain damage in a car accident, in which a tractor-trailer struck her car on a highway in Minneapolis. She and a first cousin were drinking alcohol and driving, and the accident resulted in the death of her cousin and Joanne's being committed to a nursing home in Bloomington, Minnesota. Consequently, Jeff was placed in the care of his paternal grandfather, Daryl Allen "Dash" Lussier, Sr., on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. He expressed frustration with living on the reservation and believed that his life was beyond his control.

His depression provoked a suicide attempt in May 2004, describing his experience in a post made on the website Above Top Secret:

''I had went through a lot of things in my life that had driven me to a darker path than most choose to take. I split the flesh on my wrist with a box opener, painting the floor of my bedroom with blood I shouldn't have spilt. After sitting there for what seemed like hours (which apparently was only minutes), I had the revelation that this was not the path. It was my decision to seek medical treatment, as on the other hand I could have chose to sit there until enough blood drained from my downward lascerations on my wrists to die.''

Weise eventually told his grandfather about the suicide attempt and was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in June. He underwent a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he was suicidal and was released only three days later.

High school
Weise attended Ponemah Elementary School in nearby Ponemah for fifth grade and Red Lake Middle School in Red Lake for sixth through eighth grades. Weise was forced to repeat the eighth grade because of failing grades and enrolled in a special education program at the school called Learning Center. Teacher Downwind Grant recalled, "[Weise] didn't function academically. He just sat there and drew pictures of army people with guns. He was a talented artist, but he drew terrible, terrible pictures."

In August 2003, Weise enrolled at Red Lake Senior High School in Red Lake. He was remembered as withdrawn by teachers and fellow students and reportedly had a history of troublesome behavior. However, his social studies teacher Wanda Baxter recalled, "[Weise] was a good listener like any other ordinary student. He was quiet but never a troublemaker." Another teacher described Weise as "a pretty bright kid, but was lazy when it came to school." According to reports, Weise endured frequent bullying by fellow students because of his physical appearance and regularly dressing in all-black clothing. In spite of this, he usually did not respond to their taunts. Jeffrey himself said, "Because of my size and appearance people don't give me as much trouble as they would if I looked weak." In spite of the bullying, several students remember Weise as being non-violent. Sophomore student Cartera Hart was a close friend of Weise and described him as "the only one I talked to about my problems. He was trustworthy, and he was always capable of understanding what I was going through." Although he has sometimes been described as a loner, several students have testified that he possessed a great deal of friends. He was known to wear a black trench coat and black clothing to school all year round, and was labeled a "Goth kid" by fellow students. He was also known to have a notebook into which he drew what has been described by friend Sky Grant as "evil and dark... stuff".

In March 2004, during a school pep rally, Weise extended his right arm upward in the Nazi salute while students were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. He was sent to a school counselor and professed far-right leanings and his admiration for Adolf Hitler. In April, the faculty at Red Lake Senior High School had been warned of someone threatening to "shoot up" the school on April 20, Hitler's birthday and the five-year anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. Weise was a prime suspect in the threat and was expelled in October. For the following five months, Weise was enrolled in a home-schooling program for children residing on the reservation.

The massacre
On March 21, 2005, Weise killed a total of nine people. He first killed his grandfather, 58-year-old Daryl Allen Lussier, Sr., and Lussier's girlfriend, 31-year-old Michelle Leigh Sigana. Later he shot and killed seven people at Red Lake Senior High School, including one teacher and a security guard. Five other students were injured in the shooting. After briefly exchanging fire with police officers following the murders, Weise committed suicide via shotgun.

Weise and the Internet
According to reports, Weise spent vast amounts of time online. In online posts, he frequently dealt with the subject of zombies, under the pseudonym "Blades11". In a short story he published on the internet in early 2004, titled "Surviving the Dead", he includes a detailed description of a school massacre from the perspective of a victim, combining it with the theme of zombies. The story is bloody and crude in content and spelling. Grover's Mill, Minnesota, the "quiet town" in Weise's story, was the site of the landing of aliens in the radio version of War of the Worlds starring Orson Welles. Weise also posted at Above top secret.com.

Another website he frequented was The Official Mars Website, the online headquarters for the San Francisco Bay Area Horrorcore rapper Mars, where the users are encouraged to post about music, murder, and suicide on its forums. Weise was described by friends and family as an obsessed fan of both Horrorcore music and Mars.

Weise also created violent Flash animations and posted them on the Internet (including Newgrounds) using the alias "Regret". One animation entitled Target Practice depicts an individual who shoots three people with an assault rifle, blows up a police car with a grenade, then fatally shoots a Ku Klux Klan member. It ends when the character uses a handgun to shoot himself in the head. The animation is accompanied by the sounds of rapid gunfire.

A reviewer of the animation on Newgrounds wrote, "Umm... ok. Was that like a warning message? Hmm dude you need help badly," to which Weise replied, "Lol, you obviously can't tell the difference between Fantasy and reality. This cartoon was made for nothing more than Random violence, and believe it or not there's an audience out there that this appeals to. So don't try judging my Mental health based upon a simple animation, capisce?" Weise's Newgrounds profile also noted that two of his favorite films were Elephant and Zero Day, which were both based on and inspired by the Columbine High School massacre.

Weise's only other animation on Newgrounds was "Clown," in which a clown devours a young man's head, although the scene is shown for less than a second. Weise was briefly part of a defunct animation website known as Anitude, where he created an unfinished crime series featuring violent gangsters.

Weise is also believed to have posted messages on the Neo-Nazi Internet forum of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party under the aliases NativeNazi and Todesengel (German for "angel of death"). The posts revealed an admiration for the ideas of Adolf Hitler, and interests in persuading other Native Americans as to the merits of those ideas. He also had a fascination with the swastika. On one occasion, he fought with a pupil whom he referred to as a "Communist".

In one post, dated July 13, 2004, he claimed:

As a result of cultural dominance and interracial mixing there is [sic]'' barely any full blooded Natives left. Where I live less than 1% of all the people on the Reservation can speak their own language, and among the youth wanting to be black has run rampant...Under a National Socialist government, things for us would improve vastly… and that is why I am pro-Nazi.''

Another post read:

''I try not to be aggressive in most situations, I'll use force if I have to, but I'm not about to go out and pick a fight. I'm mostly defensive, I'll defend myself if someone tries something but other than that I'm a peaceful person.''

The posts were dated eleven months prior to the shooting.

A LiveJournal account apparently created by Weise contained just three entries from December 2004 through January 2005. The weblog was customized to be rendered in black and white, and Weise expressed feelings in his few writings including a desire for change and salvation.