Potential school shooting thwarted, student arrested after attempting to enter Kenosha elementary school

KENOSHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Kenosha school employees prevented a potential school shooting on Thursday, Nov. 7 when a 13-year-old showed up to an elementary school with a rifle.

All students and staff are safe tonight, and the suspect is in custody.

Kenosha police said the 13-year-old boy is a student in Kenosha.

Shortly after 9 a.m., the boy walked into Roosevelt Elementary School, carrying a black backpack and a duffle bag.

School staff started to question him, and he took off.

This could have been a national tragedy, but children's lives were saved by the quick-thinking school staff.

Police said for weeks the boy shared videos and made comments about school shootings. They also said he searched school shootings on the internet.

Kenosha police obtained a video of the suspect, working with a semi-automatic rifle in a home.

They say today's incident was a potential school shooting.

"We narrowly missed a tragedy today," said Chief Patrick Patton with the Kenosha Police Department.

Police say a rifle was in the bag.

Kenosha police say he tried to get into the school through several doors, but they were all locked.

When he went to the secure front entrance, he was buzzed through the first set of doors, not the second, as school staff responded.

"They approached him, you can see there being interaction, the suspect got nervous. Started fidgeting more. Turned around and left," said Dr. Jeff Weiss, superintendent with the Kenosha Unified School District. 

The suspect fled, and staff alerted police, who flooded the area with officers.
Roosevelt was put on lockdown.

Police took an image of the boy from the school security camera and posted it to social media, asking for help identifying him.

He was quickly named.

"The investigation revealed that the suspect shared videos and made several comments to fellow students for weeks leading up to today," said Chief Patton.

Police say in the video they obtained, the boy was practicing room entry techniques. 

Police located the suspect at a duplex near 30th Ave in Kenosha. 

They said shortly after 2 p.m. he gave himself up and was taken into custody. 

"Did you ever interact with him?" CBS 58's Adam Rife asked Andrew Juarez, who lives nearby the suspect.

"They were always inside. I only really see them to take out the trash. But even then, they wouldn't really talk to me. They'd just kind of look at me and keep walking." said Juarez. "They weren't mean or anything. It wasn't anything crazy or anything suspicious. That's why it's more surprising. I thought they were just normal people. I didn't think it'd be something like that."

It was an emotional day for the parents at Roosevelt Elementary School as they waited for their children to be released and safely back in their arms.

"Absolutely terrifying," said Roosevelt Elementary School parent, Daniel Norris. "Being able to get her out and see her smile as she saw us that was the best part."

Parents were waiting outside the school anxiously for hours wanting to pick their kids up early because of the potential threat but were unable to.

"We live right up the block so it's crazy," said Roosevelt Elementary School parent, Gavin Casillas. "We've got to do better. We have to do better all across the board."

Parents say today was their worst nightmare and are demanding more safety precautions and changes to assure another close call like this doesn't happen.

"What's going through my head is that I want to be done with the public school system," said Roosevelt Elementary School parent, JD. "Like now I want to homeschool them. Like how did this guy get in? This lockdown procedure you have doesn't make sense."

Amid the response at Roosevelt, an active shooter was mistakenly reported at Gateway Technical College and police responded to there as well. 

Police said a Gateway student shared a post about the Roosevelt incident with a parent, but the parent misinterpreted it, thinking it happened at Gateway. 

An officer responding to Gateway got into a one car crash and is recovering in the hospital. 

All other officers, students and school staff are safe.