On Tape, Moses Lake Boy Talks About School Rampage

EPHRATA - Fifteen year-old Barry Loukaitis calmly described how he fatally shot a classmate he disliked, then shot three other people at his school.

"I guess reflex took over," Loukaitis told a police detective during an interview taped several hours after the shootings.

Prosecutors played the tape of the interview yesterday during a Grant County Superior Court hearing on whether Loukaitis should be tried as an adult.

Killed in the Feb. 2 shootings at Frontier Junior High in Moses Lake were Loukaitis' algebra teacher, Leona Caires, and two 14-year-old classmates, Manuel Vela and Arnold Fritz. Another classmate, Natalie Hintz, was seriously injured.

In a matter-of-fact tone, Loukaitis said in the interview that he shot Vela and then began firing at others. About his intended targets, Loukaitis said, "The only positive deliberate one was Manuel."

Earlier, a police detective testified that students told him Vela had picked on Loukaitis. In turn, Loukaitis had talked about killing Vela, the detective said.

But in the interview, Loukaitis said although he planned to kill Vela, he hadn't been picked on. "It's not like he was a bully or anything," he said.

The decision to shoot the other, he said, "might have been deliberate and it might have been . . . accidental.

"I don't know. I guess reflex took over . . . It's like I pictured myself doing it or something. I never really pictured myself doing anything else."

Loukaitis then described ordering the surviving students to line up in the back of the classroom. "I wanted to get everything in order, make sure everyone who wasn't shot would sit in the back of the room, because I didn't want anyone to rush me," he said. "I didn't want to shoot anyone else."

The rampage ended when physical-education teacher Jon Lane entered the classroom, talked to Loukaitis, then knocked the rifle out of his hands.

Loukaitis is charged with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault.