Teen opens fire in high school

CLEVELAND — A 14-year-old suspended student opened fire in his downtown high school Wednesday, wounding four people as terrified schoolmates hid in closets and bathrooms and huddled under laboratory desks. He then killed himself.

A fellow student at SuccessTech Academy alternative school said Asa Coon, who was suspended for fighting Monday, had made threats in front of students and teachers last week.

"He's crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody," Doneisha LeVert said. "We didn't think nothing of it."

Coon was armed with two .38-caliber revolvers, and police found a duffel bag stocked with ammunition and three knives in a bathroom, officials said. Parents were angry that firearms got into a school equipped with metal detectors that students said were intermittently used.

Officials said two teachers and two students were shot, and a 14-year-old girl fell and hurt her knee while running.

Witnesses said the shooter moved through the converted five-story downtown office building, working through the first two floors of administrative offices and up to the third floor of classrooms.

The first person shot, Michael Peek, 14, had punched Coon in the face before the shootings began, said Rasheem Smith, 15.

Antonio Deberry, 17, said he and his classmates hid under laboratory tables and watched the shooter move down the hallway.

Darnell Rodgers, 18, was walking up to another floor when the stairway suddenly flooded with students. "It took me a couple of minutes to realize that I was actually shot," Rodgers said.

He was treated at a hospital for a graze wound to an elbow. The other two injured teens were taken to a children's hospital, which would not release their conditions.

Math teacher David Kachadourian, 57, was treated and released for a minor wound to the back of a shoulder. History teacher Michael Grassie, 42, was in fair condition at a hospital after about two hours of surgery. The nature of the surgery was not disclosed.

Coon had been suspended since Monday for fighting near the school, said Charles Blackwell, president of SuccessTech's student-parent organization. He did not know how Coon entered the building Wednesday.

Blackwell said that there was a security guard on the first floor.