Suspected School Shooter Told Friends He'd Do 'Something Stupid'

Ami Strahan lost her husband on Father's Day when a motor home he was working on fell atop him. Less than three months later, she'd also lose her son. Sam Strahan was shot in the head shortly after 10am Wednesday by a schoolmate at Freeman High School in Spokane County, Wash., possibly as the sophomore tried to stop the shooter, reports the Spokesman-Review. Caleb Sharpe, whom a friend says had recently become interested in school shooting documentaries, had been seen carrying a duffel bag on the bus to school, per the Review. Once inside the building, he allegedly pulled an AR-15 rifle from within, the Review reports. When it jammed, he withdrew a handgun, witnesses say. According to one account, Sharpe shot into the ceiling, then killed Strahan as he tried to intervene.

"His face was completely passive," a student says of Sharpe, who reportedly fired shots down a hallway. Three females were hit—including one in the back and one in the abdomen—before a custodian tackled Sharpe, witnesses say. Those injured are in stable condition, while Sharpe is now in a juvenile detention center. The teen—who showed off guns on his YouTube channel, archived here—had warned friends in a series of notes, passed to a counselor, that he planned to do "something stupid," per the Review. Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich describes the motive for the shooting as "a bullying type of situation." As for Strahan, "he gave everything to protect those who are in harm's way" and "that's how he'll be remembered," Knezovich tells the Washington Post. (More school shooting stories.)