Near Miss at Roosevelt Elementary in Kenosha, WI
A 13-year-old researched school shootings and attempted to enter his former elementary school during morning classes with a backpack and duffle bag.
For the second time this year in Wisconsin, a young teen researched school shootings and attempted to carry out an attack with a replica airsoft gun. In May, a 14-year-old with an air rifle was killed by police outside his middle school in Mount Horeb, WI. This week in Kenosha, a 13-year-old attempting an attack fled from the campus before police arrived.
According to Kenosha Unified School District, the teen tried to enter Roosevelt Elementary School around 9:00 on Thursday morning, carrying a backpack and duffle bag. He tried to enter locked doors around the building before being buzzed into the front entry. When school staff tried to speak with him, he ran from the school.
Police conducted a search warrant at his home on Thursday afternoon where they found several airsoft replica handguns and a replica rifle. No real firearms were found during the search.
The 13-year-old first told police he went to the school to sell candy, but later told a social worker he had gone to the school to scare students.
Per statements from police, the 13-year-old shared videos and made several comments about school shootings to fellow students for weeks leading up to the attempted attack on Thursday.
"We know that there is Internet searches and all the red flags that we would look for and expect someone to report were there. They're coming up towards saying we have we narrowly missed a tragedy today, and we're just going to re-encourage everybody when they see something, say something, help us out. Have those talks with your children. This should have been reported to us earlier" Police Chief Patton said.
Most school shootings are committed by current or former students who plan the attack for months or years, and tell classmates about their plot. This attempted attack had planning and intent, but he lacked the capability to carry it out.
Wisconsin student with air rifle killed by police during attempted school shooting
Back in May 2024, police were called for an active shooter at Mount Horeb Middle in rural Wisconsin. Officers spotted a teen outside of the building with a long black rifle and killed him when he didn’t comply with commands. Four days later, police provided an update that the rifle was a $100 pellet gun available at Walmart and Amazon. From the police records, it appears that he may have attempted to load the air rifle with a 9mm round (online air gun forums describe how to fire a 9mm bullet with a modified air rifle).
For the first time ever, a school shooting plot involved improvised explosives with 5 grams of United Nuclear brand uranium ore. Luckily this is low grade radioactive material that’s mainly used for equipment calibration but the intent to cause harm is clear even if he didn’t have the means. Scattering nuclear material with a conventional explosive was the terrorist ‘dirty bomb’ scenario that dominated emergency response planning in the aftermath of 9/11.
Here is my original article about the shooting and my interview on Wisconsin Public Radio with a reporter who is also a parent at the school.
Just like the Oxford, MI school shooter drew a picture of himself committing a school shooting on a test, the 14-year-old at Mount Horeb Middle wrote a note on a class assignment referencing “died by cops”. The teen knew that showing up at his school with a rifle was going to be a “suicide by cop” situation.
Read more: Near Miss: Student had 'dirty bomb' at Mount Horeb Middle during school shooting
Near Miss reporting for schools
A near miss in aviation is an incident that could've caused physical injury or property loss but didn't. When a near miss happens in an airplane, a report needs to be filed with the FAA within seven days so that other pilots are aware of what happened. Creating a culture that prioritizes safety above all else means that mistakes are not kept secret, they are documented and openly shared across the aviation industry.
From collecting data on sixty years of school shootings, I’ve seen a wide array of different circumstances. Based on these real-world incidents, I’ve adapted the aviation definition of near miss to include shootings at schools that had the potential to be much worse. A near miss can be an incident without injuries or deaths. It can also be a shooting with victims killed or injured that had the potential to be much worse.
Read more: Near Miss Reports: What schools can learn from the zero fatality goal in aviation
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.