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MO Family Pleaded To Have Gun Removed Before Teen's Shooting

Crime and Justice News

Orlando Harris’ family pleaded with Missouri police to confiscate the 19-year-old’s bullet-proof vest, ammunition and AR-15-style rifle. They knew his mental health was fragile after more than one suicide attempt. The best officers could do in a state with some of the most expansive gun rights is suggest Harris keep the weapon in a storage unit, the Associated Press reports. Nine days later, Harris entered his former St. Louis high school and declared, “All of you are going to die.” A new police report details the efforts Harris’ family took to try to take his gun away in the days before he walked into Central Visual Arts and Performing Arts High School on Oct. 24, 2022, when he killed a student and a teacher and wounded seven others before he was fatally shot by police. Missouri is not among the 21 states with red-flag laws. Also known as extreme risk protection orders, red-flag laws are intended to restrict the purchase of guns or temporarily remove them from people who may hurt themselves or someone else.


The case highlights how hard it is for law enforcement to restrict gun access, even when there are clues something is deeply amiss. After an Army reservist killed 18 people last year in Lewiston, Me., an investigation found missed opportunities to intervene in the shooter’s psychiatric crisis. Before a 14-year-old was charged in a deadly shooting this fall at his Georgia high school, a deputy talked to him about an online threat and family warned of an "extreme emergency." The report in the St. Louis case shows the first time he attempted suicide was in the fall of 2021, just before he was scheduled to leave for college. Pandemic disruptions, the arrest of a friend in a homicide and a car wreck may have contributed to his depression, his family and former boss told investigators. He worked in the cafeteria at a senior facility, where he sometimes discussed guns with coworkers. The following August he met with a Washington University psychiatry resident, telling her he thought about shooting people at his old school. He said those thoughts lasted for just one evening and went away, and he didn’t want to do it.

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A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

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