MARYSVILLE, Washington: The students and teachers at Marysville-Pilchuck High School knew a shooting was possible — they had seen the news from other schools, and they had trained for lockdowns.
But when the alarms started ringing at the school about 56km north of Seattle just after 10:39am Friday, many still thought it was a drill. Some instinctively rushed into the halls, before teachers and staff members said this one was real, and they bolted back inside, blocking the doors, lying on the floor, and texting one another for information.
Some heard the gunshots, and some saw the bloodshed. A young classmate had opened fire in the cafeteria, killing a girl and striking two boys and two other girls in the head before turning his gun on himself and committing suicide. The students hit by gunfire were seriously injured.
Hundreds of students were trapped in classrooms for nearly three hours, as law enforcement officers combed through the sprawling campus, making sure there were no other gunmen, then methodically allowing the uninjured students to leave for a nearby church to reunite with their parents.
Family members appearing on local television confirmed the accounts of students who said that the assailant was a 14-year-old freshman, Jaylen Fryberg, who played football and had been elected a homecoming prince. But the local police commander, Robb Lamoureux, would not give the gunman’s name, identify what type of weapon he used or specify a motive. He would say only that the gunman had “died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound”; an official with the federal bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and wxplosives said the gun had been legally acquired.
Rick Iverson, a former Marysville-Pilchuck English teacher and wrestling coach, said that among the victims was a close friend of Jaylen.
He described Jaylen as “an outgoing person that everyone in the school loved.”
Dr Joanne Roberts, chief medical officer at Providence Regional Medical Centre in Everett, where the four injured students were first taken, said that the wounded students suffered ‘very serious wounds’ and were ‘critically ill’. The boys, aged 14 and 15, were transferred to Harborview Medical Centre in Seattle; one had been shot in the jaw, and the other in the head, she said. The girls, she said, had undergone surgery at Providence for gunshot wounds to the head.
As uninjured students were being evacuated, police officers swept the building to ensure there was no longer an active threat. Students were directed to the nearby Shoultes Gospel Hall to be reunited with their families. The police said they had asked about 30 students and staff members who witnessed the shooting to remain at the school for questioning.
Josh Iukes, a 14-year-old student, said he saw the shooting from inside the cafeteria.
“It seemed like a normal day — he was blank, he wasn’t really saying anything, and then he stood up, pulled something out of his pocket, and shot,” he said. He said the targets were classmates sitting with Jaylen, who were all his friends.
“I saw the first shot, and then I didn’t really pay attention. I just ran out.”
He said students had a hard time fleeing in the frenzy.
“There’s three exits,” he said. “Every single one was just packed. Everyone was just pushing their way, trying to get out of the cafeteria.”
Erick Cervantes, a 16-year-old junior, said he saw a cafeteria worker grab the arm of the gunman as the episode was unfolding, heard another shot and saw the gunman fall to the ground, though he was not sure what had happened. “She just came running in through the door,” he said, describing the intervention by the cafeteria worker.
“I’m just shocked. I just want to go home and forget what happened,” he said.
Kylie Clark, a 14-year-old ninth-grader, said she was in a computer class when the alarm went off.
“Then I heard that people were getting hurt, and it got worse,” she said, standing outside the church near the school waiting for her parents to pick her up on Friday afternoon. During the lockdown, she said, she and two dozen other students in her classroom could hear yelling outside, but were told to stay silent, with the lights off.
“It was dark and everybody had to be really quiet,” she said. “It was scary.”
No motive was apparent, but Josh, who said he had known Jaylen since preschool, noticed a change in his behaviour recently.
“He was one of our class clowns,” he said. “He was really funny. Then for the last couple days, he wasn’t like that.”
Roberts said, ruefully, that because of school shootings elsewhere around the country, the hospital had been prepared; just two months ago, it had rehearsed for a school shooting. So on Friday morning, hospital officials knew what to do; they sent out the alert for a traumatic event, summoning two dozen physicians and scores of staff members.
“We had dreaded this day in this community,” Roberts said.
“As horrible as this situation is, it is a situation we were really prepared for,” she said.
The day ended with candles and with Red Cross volunteers walking the aisles of the Grove Church in Marysville with boxes of tissues. The church’s lead pastor, Nik Baumgart, called for a minute of silence during an evening service that was packed with parents, students and elected officials, including Gov. Jay Inslee. But the silence only amplified the sound of sniffling and crying.
Many of the hundreds in attendance wore red and white, the school colours. A band onstage strummed quietly as Baumgart continued.
“What do you do after this?” he asked. He referred to Friday’s events and their aftermath as “this season of our city,” and added: “I don’t know, but I think it has something to do with loving one another.”
