Victims recall mass shooting in Red Lake, 10 years later

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. – Saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of the school shooting at Red Lake High School, which remains the largest mass homicide in Minnesota history.

On March 21st, 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

He then went into the high school with a shotgun and a pistol and killed five students, a teacher, and a security guard before taking his own life.

Our partners at Minnesota Public Radio News spoke with several victims who survived the shooting that day.

"It's still not me there," former Red Lake High School teacher Missy Dodds told MPR News. "It's like a movie that you watched. I think in my mind I still keep trying to fight that it even really happened."

Dodds said the teen put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger, but the gun never fired because he was out of bullets.

She was spared and hasn't taught a class since.

"I thought the shooting at this point has taken ten years of my life, and I don't want it to affect my kids," said Dodds.

Also in the classroom was Jeff May, a then 15-year-old boy who charged the gunman with a pencil.

May was shot in the head but survived.

"I can still imagine it. I can still hear. I can still taste the blood," said May.

Touted as a national hero, after the incident May received $750,000 in insurance money.

But the money went fast, depression set in, and May now lives alone at a house in Red Lake.

His dreams of a football scholarship and life off the reservation were violently taken.

"Went from a normal kid to, I don't know. I had everything taken from me. I can't move my left arm. I can't do anything any other people can do," said May.

Ashley Lajeunesse is another former student at Red Lake.

She said she has blocked out parts of that day, but some memories can't be shaken.

"I remember his gun jammed up on him and he was really messing around with it and he just threw it and got out another one," said Lajeunesse.

She now lives with her boyfriend and three kids in Red Lake.

Though not physically harmed in the shooting, emotional wounds still haunt her.

"I still get the anxiety. That's why I quit going to college. I wouldn't even be able to pay attention in class. I'd be thinking of ways to exit if a shooter came in or a place to hide," she said.

The scars from ten years ago came in many forms. Thousands of lives changed and nine lives taken in a still inexplicable tragedy.