Authorities in Wisconsin say an armed 13-year-old carrying a backpack and duffel bag was stopped from entering an elementary school Thursday morning after being confronted by school personnel and taken into custody several hours later.
Chief Patrick D. Patton, the police chief of Kenosha, told reporters Thursday, “We just barely beat a tragedy.”
Patton said the 13-year-old, who used to go to Roosevelt Elementary School, tried to get into the building around 9 a.m. local time.
Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told reporters at a news conference that the suspect tried to get into the school through other doors but was not successful.
Then he went up to the front door and was buzzed into a hallway. Weiss said that when two school staff members confronted the student, the student got scared and ran away.
“I can not be stressed…” “I can not believe how brave our office staff was,” Weiss said. “They helped stop a disaster.”
Thanks to tips from the public, police were able to identify the teen suspect later.
“We can confirm that this was not just a suspicious individual, we believe that this was actually an armed suspect with a firearm and there was no legitimate reason to enter the school,” Patton said at a later news event.
A little after 2 p.m. local time, police arrested the suspect. At the first news conference, police showed a video they said showed the suspect with a gun.
They also said the suspect researched school shootings online and talked to other students about them for weeks before the shooting.
Kenosha is south of Milwaukee by about 40 miles.