Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Well, This is All Effed Up

Lack of coverage is odd, too. Well, I guess they can only handle one story at time.

BEMIDJI, Minn. (Reuters) - A 17-year-old who killed nine people and himself on a Minnesota Indian reservation identified himself as an "angel of death" and a "NativeNazi" on Internet postings, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Officials sealed off the remote town of Red Lake, 60 miles south of the Canadian border, while they investigated Monday's bloodbath, the worst U.S. school shooting since the 1999 Columbine massacre.

Floyd Jourdain Jr., chairman of the Red Lake Indian council, called the tragedy "the darkest day in the history of our tribe."

The shooter was Red Lake High School sophomore Jeff Weise, according to witnesses and school officials.

Weise identified himself in Internet site postings as "Todesengel," German for "angel of death" and "NativeNazi," the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

He also claimed to have been questioned by police in 2004 about an alleged plot to shoot up the school on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday, but said he had nothing to do with that, the report said.

"I guess I've always carried a natural admiration for Hitler and his ideals, and his courage to take on larger nations," the newspaper quoted Weise as saying in one forum used by neo-Nazis.