One Slain, 5 Critical At Oregon High School -- Police Find Two More Dead At Home Of Shooter, 15

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - A day after being expelled for having a gun, a 15-year-old student returned to school with a semiautomatic rifle and opened fire in the high-school cafeteria today, killing at least one person and critically wounding five others. Police later found two adults dead in the boy's home.

Nineteen others also were hurt in the latest in a series of school shootings across the country.

Police identified the boy as Kipland P. Kinkel, who had been arrested, expelled and released to his parents' custody a day earlier on a charge of possession of a stolen firearm.

Shots rang out at Thurston High School just before 8 a.m., while 300 to 400 students were attending a Senior Men's Excellence breakfast. Witnesses saw the boy, in a cream-colored trench coat, run through the cafeteria firing his rifle from the hip. Twenty minutes later, he was tackled by a student and arrested.

An hour and a half after that, sheriff's deputies found two bodies in the boy's home just outside the city. Lane County Sheriff Jan Clements said the relationship of the victims was unknown, but there were several broadcast reports that they were the boy's parents.

A neighbor of the boy's family, Audrey Wood, said the father taught Spanish at Thurston High and was her children's teacher in the '80s.

Several students said they knew Kinkel as a 15-year-old freshman who played football. Some said he once gave a talk in speech class about how to build a bomb.

"He always said that it would be fun to kill someone and do stuff like that," said student Robbie Johnson, who knows the boy. "Yesterday, he told a couple of people he was probably going to do something stupid today and get back at the people who had expelled him."

Authorities said this morning that Kinkel will be incarcerated as a juvenile but tried as an adult. Under Oregon law, he cannot be subject to the death penalty because of his age.

Stephanie Quimby, 16, said she was sitting one table away in the cafeteria when Kinkel apparently focused on one table and drew his rifle.

"I thought it was fake. I had never heard a gun go off," Quimby said. "It was like a movie and you were there. I felt so calm. I knew it was real when I saw him point the gun at someone and heard a girl yell, "Tressa!" I knew she wouldn't joke."

"I heard like firecrackers. People were running and screaming. There were two bodies and blood was everywhere," said a student, who refused to give his name as he was taken out of the school by his mother.

Stacy Compton, 15, said she was sitting at a table when the boy came in and "started going bananas" with the gun. She said she ducked under the table; her best friend got hit in the center of her forehead.

Wrestling coach Gary Bowden said there were between 300 and 400 students in the cafeteria when the shots rang out. He said one of his best wrestlers tackled Kinkel and got the gun away from him.

Bowden said the shooter had a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle, a .38-caliber handgun and military style knives.

"You don't make sense out of this. There is no sense to it," the coach said. "I think we ought to disarm. If this isn't a reason to, what is? I can flunk a kid and he can walk in and blow me away.

"Any kid who takes a gun to school - why he isn't put under observation for a few weeks is beyond me," Bowden said.

The school of 1,350 students was shut down after the shooting and parents, many of them weeping and screaming, waited outside.

Five students wounded by gunfire were being treated at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield.

In addition, a number of other students, brought to the hospital by bus, were being treated for bumps, bruises and other injuries suffered in the crush to escape the cafeteria, said Marianne Dyer, the hospital's director of human resources.

At midday, friends of some of the victims began gathering at St. Paul Methodist Church, across the street from the high school.

"Everyone's in shock, there's lots of hugs and tears, but everyone is very orderly. Some are stopping in to pray or just reflect," said Connie McIndoo.

She said the quiet mood was a contrast to the scene in the first hour after the shooting. "The yards were full of students, students and parents trying to locate one another."

In neighboring Eugene, Sacred Heart Medical Center spokesman Dan Steinberg said his hospital had three patients, two boys and a girl, all in critical condition.

Daniel Jud, director of the Lane County Chapter of the American Red Cross, said mental-health counselors were being sent to the school and the hospitals.

In Washington, President Clinton expressed his sympathy.

"I know that all Americans are heartbroken," Clinton said during a Rose Garden ceremony on NATO expansion. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the people who were killed and wounded, and with that entire fine community."

The president also called the school's principal to express personal condolences from himself and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, said White House spokesman Mike McCurry.

-----------------------------------------------------------.

.

The names of those injured at the school were released today. The name of the person killed at the school was not.

. Jennifer Alldredge . Ryan Atteberry . Lynn Betina . Sara Branom . Tony Case . Nate Cole . Ryan Crowley . Lace Cunningham . Tabitha Fain . Melissa Femrite . Jaclyn Hardenbrook . Trina Harty . Kyle Howse . Carolyn McClain . Elizabeth McKenzie . Tara McMullen . Terisa Miltonberger . Mikael Nickalauson . Cristina Osburn . Josh Pearson . Richard Peek . Amber Ramsey . Jake Ryker . Melissa Taylor . Gabe Thomas . Ben Walker . Jesse Walley .