- MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich.
(Reuters) - The 6-year-old Michigan boy who shot and killed a 6-year-old
girl in their classroom had severe problems at home and appeared not to
understand the seriousness of what he had done, investigators said Wednesday.
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- He seemed to regard it as a television-style killing,
they said. When police stopped quizzing him about the shooting -- which
horrified Americans because the shooter and his victim were so young --
he turned to drawing pictures.
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- Investigators said the boy got the loaded gun he used
from under blankets on a bed at the house where he was living -- a "crack
house" where he wound up after his father went to jail and his mother
was evicted from their home.
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- The dead girl was the youngest victim in a series of
shootings in U.S. schools in recent years, the most serious of which was
the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two
students killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
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- That and other shootings prompted anguished discussion
about gun control, school security and related issues that the Michigan
incident was certain to intensify.
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- Arthur Busch, the prosecutor for Michigan's Genesee County,
said detectives had told him they were convinced that they boy "did
not understand what he had done, did not appreciate the consequences of
his actions and appeared to take this as some sort of, well that just kind'a
happens like on television."
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- "He did not seem to appreciate nor understand the
gravity of what he had done...when the interview was concluded, he sat
there drawing pictures," Busch told a news conference.
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- Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell told reporters
later that the boy and his 8-year-old brother had been living in what their
jailed father described as a "crack house" for the past five
or 10 days.
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- He said the children wound up there after their father
was sent back to jail on a parole violation and the mother was evicted
from the home in which the family had been living.
-
- Pickell also said the boy's father told him his son had
been suspended three times from school in a short period of time, once
for stabbing a classmate with a pencil.
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- The father, he added, said the boy once said of other
students at the school, "I hate them."
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- Busch announced that a man identified as Sir Marcus Winfrey
-- an uncle with whom the brothers were living -- had been arrested on
an outstanding felony warrant alleging that he received and concealed stolen
property.
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- He said another unnamed person was being sought in connection
with the case. Pickell said that man was a crack dealer living at the uncle's
house.
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- Both the gun used in the shooting and a loaded shotgun
also found in the home were stolen, Busch said, adding that drugs were
also found in the house.
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- Police and witnesses said the boy, now in the custody
of a state child welfare agency, showed off the .32 caliber handgun to
a few students at Buell Elementary School, north of Flint, Michigan, while
the teacher and most of the rest of the class were leaving the classroom.
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- He pointed the gun at another boy then whirled and shot
Kayla Rolland once through the neck. She died shortly afterward at a local
hospital.
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- Mt. Morris Police Chief Eric King told the briefing that
students who witnessed the shooting gave conflicting accounts of whether
the boy said anything to the girl before he shot her. The two were reported
to have had a playground spat the day before.
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- King said the boy put the gun back in his desk after
the shooting. Earlier reports said the child left the room and threw the
weapon in a restroom waste can.
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- Busch said investigators would meet Thursday to determine
"if someone can be held criminally responsible for the death of this
little girl." He reiterated earlier statements that the boy cannot
be charged with a felony because of his age.
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- He urged compassion both for the family of the little
girl and for the boy, saying "this little guy has some severe problems
that need to be addressed...he needs all the support and help we can give
him." He said the boy was living in a house where he did not even
have his own bed.
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- "This kid is as much a victim, in my opinion, as
the little girl," Busch said earlier on CBS.
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- Classes were canceled at Buell Elementary on Wednesday,
but the school was open to offer counseling services. Parents and young
children arrived at the school, some of them placing flowers and teddy
bears near the entrance.
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