KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A 13-year-old boy who had been researching school shootings online was taken into custody for hours after he tried to enter a Wisconsin elementary school while armed and fled when confronted by school staff, police said .
“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Kenosha Police Chief Patrick Patton said Thursday afternoon.
Police believe the boy had a gun when he was stopped around 9 a.m. Thursday as he tried to enter Roosevelt Elementary School in Kenosha, about 35 miles south of Milwaukee, with a backpack and duffel bag.
School staff interviewed the teen in a secure entrance, and surveillance footage showed a large black bag at his side, Patton said.
“The only reason why the individual could not fully enter the school was the quick and careful action of school staff,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. The boy immediately fled on foot when school staff approached him, Patton said.
The “suspect actually tried numerous exterior doors and entrances before getting to where our secure entry is,” said Jeff Weiss, superintendent of the Kenosha Unified School District.
The teen attends Mahone Middle School and was a former student at Roosevelt Elementary, police said. He was intercepted by police during a community-wide search around 2 p.m.
Investigators “have information that the suspect has conducted multiple internet searches related to school shootings,” Patton said, adding that the suspect had shared videos and made several comments to fellow students for weeks leading up to Thursday.
“This is something that people have been told about his growth intentions,” Patton said. “We know there is a search on the internet and all the red flags that we would look for and that we would expect someone to report were there.”
Police have received at least one video of the student wielding a gun, according to investigators, Patton said. The chief played video at Thursday’s news conference that shows the student holding a firearm as he appears to practice entering rooms, Patton said.
The chief did not specify when or where the video was shot, but it appears it was shot inside a home. In one scene, a cat walks by in front of what appears to be a bench.
A message left for Kenosha police Friday morning was not immediately returned.
Police have not released the boy’s identity or said how he accessed the gun. They said the suspect’s mother is cooperating with police. WISN TV reported.
All Kenosha Unified schools were placed in a “safe hold” lockdown for the remainder of Thursday. There are no lessons at school on Friday; the district had previously scheduled a day off for students before a staff workday.
The student was taken into custody in Kenosha about six months later Police shot and killed an armed student outside a high school in Wisconsin after a report of someone with a gun. The shooting in Mount Horeb, outside Madison, in May sent children fleeing and led to an hours-long lockdown of local schools. Prosecutors announced this in August that the officers who shot the student would not face criminal charges.
Kenosha made national news in August 2020 a white police officer shot a black man during a domestic disturbance, which left him paralyzed. The shooting led to several nights of protests. A white Illinois teenager named Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people during the unrest, killing two of them.
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The shootings became a flashpoint in the national debate guns, vigilantism and racial injustice. A jury ultimately acquitted Rittenhouse of any wrongdoing after he claimed he shot in self-defense.