Colorado School Shooter Reveals His Motive

Alec McKinney says he targeted kids over gender taunts
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 22, 2019 10:00 AM CDT
Colorado School Shooter Reveals His Motive
In this Wednesday, May 8, 2019, file photo, a Douglas County, Colo., Sheriff's Department deputy walks past the doors to the STEM School Highlands Ranch, in Highlands Ranch, Colo.   (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

A high school student charged in a classmate's death during a Colorado school shooting told police that he planned the attack for weeks and intended to target classmates who repeatedly mocked his gender identity, the AP reports. Written summaries of police interviews with the two suspected shooters portray 16-year-old Alec McKinney as the leader of the attack, enlisting 18-year-old Devon Erickson in the plan to kill the students who bullied McKinney, who identifies as male. Both teenagers told police that they broke into a gun safe at one of the teenager's homes before walking into the STEM School Highlands Ranch on the afternoon of May 7 with a guitar case and a backpack concealing four guns.

McKinney "said he wanted the kids at the school to experience bad things, have to suffer from trauma like he had had to in his life," the document said. "He wanted everyone in that school to suffer and realize that the world is a bad place." Both teenagers are charged with murder and attempted murder in the shooting. Prosecutors charged McKinney as an adult; his attorneys have said they plan to ask a judge to move the case back to juvenile court. Records also revealed that a hired school security guard responding to the gunfire accidentally shot a female student. According to the record, several officers reported that the guard fired twice at a Douglas County Sheriff's lieutenant. The document also said the guard caught one of the suspected shooters in a hallway.

(More school shooting stories.)

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