Teen Who Killed Two at St. Louis High School Graduated Last Year, Cops Say

The gunman who opened fire at a performing arts high school in south St. Louis on Monday morning—killing two people, a teacher and a student—has been identified by police as a 19-year-old man who graduated from the school last year.

Orlando Harris was shot dead by responding officers at Central Visual & Performing Arts High School just a few minutes after his shooting spree began around 9:10 a.m. During a press conference, police said officers ran into fire “without hesitation” while students fled the building.

“This could have been much worse,” said Interim Police Commissioner Michael Sack.

Sack said Harris had about a dozen thirty-round, high-capacity magazines on him when he was gunned down. He said detectives are still working to determine his motive, but are investigating the possibility that Harris was suffering from a mental illness.

Cops said a woman died at the hospital and that a teenage girl was pronounced dead inside the school, both of gunshot wounds. The woman killed was identified as 61-year-old Jean Kuczka, a health and PE teacher who had five children of her own, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, citing relatives.

The teacher’s daughter, Abbey Kuczka, told the paper that her mom was in her first year as an “empty nester,” and had taken a job as a cross country coach for a nearby school to stay busy.

Kuczka was nearing retirement, Abbey said, and was looking forward to it despite her love for children and teaching.

“She loved her students,” Abbey told the Post-Dispatch. “I know her students looked at her like she was their mom because a lot of them didn't have a good home life... She was definitely looking forward to retirement though. She was close.”

In Kuczka’s final Facebook post on Sunday, she showed off a weekend trip to the Tower Rock memorial in the Mississippi River. She was smiling in the one photo that showed her face.

On Facebook, former students inundated Kuczka’s page with messages of love.

“In complete disbelief, the only comfort I have comes from knowing you were doing what you loved to do,” said Shaquille Conley. “From middle school to high school you were an awesome teacher. Those ski trips were everything. We are gonna miss you. Keep that beautiful smile.”

Police still have not released the identity of the suspect, who was gunned down on the third floor of the school and pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.

St. Louis police did not release the conditions of the other victims, but said injuries ranged from gunshot wounds to cardiac arrest and shrapnel injuries.

Sack said he may never never divulge publicly how Harris made it inside the building, which is staffed with seven security guards and equipped with metal detectors, because he doesn’t want the information to help a future gunman.

Students told police that the shooter was wearing all black and was armed with a “long gun,” Sack said.

Nylah Jones, a ninth grader, told the Post-Dispatch that the gunman fired into her math class from the hallway, but couldn’t breach the door. She said she piled into a corner of the room with her classmates and stayed still as he banged on the door.

A math teacher, David Williams, said he heard the school's principal say a code over the loudspeaker that indicated an active shooter was on campus. Gunshots rang out shortly after, with the window to his classroom door being shot out.

Shortly after, he told the Post-Dispatch, he heard a man say: “You are all going to (expletive) die.”

Another student, 16-year-old Taniya Gholston, told the paper that the carnage could’ve been much worse had the suspect’s gun not jammed.

Amid the chaos, she told the Post-Dispatch she heard the gunman say: “I’m tired of this damn school and I’m tired of everybody in this damn school.”

Central Visual & Performing Arts High School is a magnet school about six miles southwest of downtown St. Louis. It had an enrollment of just 384 students last school year.

On a biography page for Kuczka, she wrote that she quickly fell in love with teaching when she began giving swimming lessons at her local YMCA in high school. She wrote that she could never imagine doing anything but teaching, and that “every child is a unique human being and deserves a chance to learn.”

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