This incident, while not as deadly as other student shooting rampages, is similar in one major way: like the shooter at Virginia Tech last April, this student had a history of mental health problems, run-ins with the juvenile justice system and confrontations with other students.
According to court records obtained by 90.3, Asa Coon committed acts of domestic violence. The records indicate he had a terrible relationship with his mother. A judge ordered him into intensive anger management, he violated his probation, he was on medication to control his emotions but may not have always taken them and he had trouble getting along with other students.
As SuccessTech student Brandon Burt tells it, Asa Coon was new at SuccessTech this year, and was provocative and confrontational from day one.
Brandon Burt: When Asa first came to school at the beginning of the year, this year, he said he didn't believe in God or anything. That day he told us he worshiped Marilyn Manson.
At the time of the Columbine school shootings in Colorado, some pundits pointed to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson as an influence spawning teen violence. The fist-fight that got Coons suspended from school on Monday stemmed from an argument over Manson and religion. When Coon returned to school Wednesday he dressed normally but at about 12:45 witnesses say he went into the bathroom and began changing into all-black clothes -- a la Marilyn Manson. Here's tenth grader Rasheen Smith.
Rasheen Smith: I went in the bathroom, and he was like wassup, and he was loading up his gun.
The sequence of events after that is a bit unclear, but shortly thereafter, Smith says he heard shots.
Rasheen Smit: I got everybody on the third floor, who was on my side of the hallway. I was like, 'hey he's shooting over there!'
When the shooting was over, two teachers and two students were hit. Coon then took his own life, before the police even reached him. As students were escorted back into the building, some parents were irate.
Sound of parents: I want my baby out here, I don't want her in there. I want her outside!
One question on the minds of lots of parents is why Coon's earlier behavior and troubled history didn't raise more red flags at SuccessTech. As of now, we don't know if the school knew of his criminal record or his emotional problems.
SuccessTech is often cited as one of the best schools in Cleveland. It's a magnet school and the roughly 250 students had to take a test to get in and be screened through interviews. The teachers' union president said it's the last school she'd expect to have this happen.
Across the street from SuccessTech is an FBI building and the studios of WKYC-TV. The station asked Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders how this could happen.
Anchor: You may not know why this happened yet, but how could this happen, sir? How could a young man who'd been suspended come back into the school with two guns and shoot at people?
Eugene Sanders: Well, obviously, my task over the next several days is to communicate with parents and the community at large what our procedures are...
The schools' chief never did answer question.
Charles Blackwell thinks he knows, however. He's the head of the Student-Parent Organization at SuccessTech. He says when the school first opened in 2002, there was then a school security guard who would walk around the building. Blackwell says that guard was removed a few years ago, leaving only a stationary guard in the administrative offices-a gaping security hole.
Charles Blackwell: With no security guard to roam the building or the back of the school, they have to access to the back of the building, or they don't them check them when they come in the front door so they just come up the stairs.
Blackwell says, before the shooting, the parents organization had formed a petition asking the district for a security guard and metal detectors in the building but they never got a response.
Charles Blackwell: every other school has at least one security guard. Some have 4 or 5. You can put one guard here.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says he's not ready to point fingers, but he is searching for answers.
Frank Jackson: This is tragedy and whenever tragedy happens, whenever tragedy happens you always look for the cause.
With Cleveland on target to hit a new record in murders this year-many of them involving young people-this latest violence raises the anxiety level here even more. Dan Bobkoff, 90.3.