Classes resumed at Red Lake High School last week, but only one-third of its 270 students attended the first day of school in the Minnesota district since shootings there last month left eight people dead.
Many of the students who attended school on April 12 were nervous and still frightened, but “glad to be there,” said Dean Carlblom, a field representative for Education Minnesota, the state teachers’ union and the liaison between the union and the district on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.
The 1,400-student district’s three schools resumed on a half-day schedule. No classes were scheduled for April 15, so that teachers could plan for the weeks ahead.
Meanwhile, federal authorities subpoenaed a number of Red Lake teenagers in a large-scale investigation of the March 21 shootings, unnamed law-enforcement officials told the Associated Press.
Several of the teenagers appeared on April 13 in federal court in Minneapolis, where a grand jury is investigating the shootings carried out by Red Lake High student Jeff Weise, who also killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion before shooting to death a security guard, a teacher, and five students and then turning his gun on himself. (“School Shootings Stun Reservation,” March 30, 2005.)
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have charged Louis Jourdain, 16, the son of Floyd Jourdain Jr., the leader of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, with conspiracy in connection with the attacks.
The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office for Minnesota refused to confirm or deny the subpoenas or discuss the investigation.
