OMAHA — The son of a police detective opened fire at a Nebraska high school Wednesday, fatally wounding the assistant principal and forcing panicked students to take cover in the kitchen of the building just as they returned from holiday break.
The gunman, who had attended Millard South High School for no more than two months, also wounded the principal before fleeing from the scene and fatally shooting himself in his car about a mile away.
Authorities declined to speculate about why the suspect, identified as 17-year-old Robert Butler Jr., targeted the administrators.
Vice principal Vicki Kaspar, 58, died at a hospital hours after the shooting, police said.
“I can’t think of a nicer person. I can’t see how anyone would be cross with her,” said John Manna, who lives two blocks from the school. Manna said he knew Kaspar because his older son graduated from high school with her son in 1996.
Principal Curtis Case, 45, was listed in stable condition.
Jessica Liberator, a sophomore, said she was in the cafeteria when another administrator “rushed in to tell everybody to get in the back of the kitchen.” She said she started to cry when students heard a knock on the kitchen door and a cafeteria worker yelled for everybody to get down.
It was a false alarm. Nobody came in.
She huddled with Brittany Brase, another sophomore. Asked whether they were best friends, Brase said, “No, not real ly.” But, she added: “She’s my best friend now. These things bring you together.”
Butler had transferred in November from a high school in Lincoln, about 50 miles southwest of Omaha.
In a rambling Facebook post filled with expletives, Butler warned Wednesday that people would hear about the “evil” things he did and said the school drove him to violence.
He wrote that the Omaha school was worse than his previous one and that the new city had changed him. He apologized and said he wanted people to remember him for who he was before affecting “the lives of the families I ruined.” The post ended with “goodbye.”
A former Lincoln classmate of Butler’s confirmed the Facebook post to The Associated Press and provided AP with a copy of it.
Conner Gerner said he remembered Butler as being energetic, fun and outgoing. Gerner said Butler sometimes got in trouble for speaking out too much in class but did not seem angry.
Butler’s stepgrandfather, Robert Uribe, said the news still seemed unreal to him Wednesday evening and didn’t seem to fit with the polite teen he knew.
“I have no idea what led to this,” said Uribe, who last saw Butler about a month ago. Uribe said nothing appeared to be wrong at that time.
Lincoln school officials declined to provide details about Butler’s student record. But Lincoln Southwest High School principal Rob Slauson said Butler was involved in few, if any, activities before transferring to the new school.
