A group of three teenagers, aged 16 to 18 have opened fire on fellow students and teachers at a school in Bexleyheath, Kent. Thirty-five people have died, including themselves, following their rampage which according to a discovered “blog website” was fuelled by their “hatred for society and continuing struggle to fit in”. Two sixteen year old boys [NAME] and [NAME] were accompanied by 18 year old [NAME] on their killing spree yesterday.
The rampage started at around 9:10am GMT when the first gunshots were heard by teachers in the main hall. The first phone call to the local police reporting of “large noises sounding like gun shots or bombs” was recorded at 9.18am, just 8 minutes after the first shot was fired, and the first victim fell.
The group entered the school through the front doors, which usually aren’t used by students, at 9:09am and within a minute their first victim, 45 year old office worker Mandy Drew, had been shot through the forehead and died instantly. This caused significant alarm to the pupils who were travelling to their first lessons as chaos broke out and children of all ages started to flee to ‘safety’. “I remember seeing Mrs Drew fall from her chair and then glancing towards the front of her desk and just seeing a gun, I knew then that something was wrong and that I had to run” recounted Sophie Adams, aged just 11 and in her first year of secondary school. With the now flurry of fleeing students it was seemingly easy for the threesome to pass through the crowd unidentified and swiftly. They moved up the nearest flight of stairs to enter the staffroom, there were approximately 20 members of staff in the room at the time of their entrance, and within 2 minutes four of them were dead, five of them injured due to shattered windows and shrapnel from surrounding furniture being hit with bullets. 27 year old Mathematics teachers Jessica Shaw took refuge under the table at the back of the room and tells us of her terror; “You hear about these events on the news and just take in all the facts and information, sympathising with the victims but it’s not until you have two six foot boys standing in the same room as you holding (the location of the other perpetrator is unknown at this point) handguns to your fellow employees temples that you realise how horrific it really is. I have never been so scared for my life and for others as I was in that room and I know that it changed my life forever, I will never trust anyone in the same way again”.
It is believed that said two then joint Haseem back in the corridor where evidence of ammunition and bullets suggest he was reloading or having trouble with his handgun. They then shot seven girls on their journey into the canteen, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their path. Kent county police believe that a homemade bomb, carried in a rucksack, was then detonated within the small confines of the canteen, this however wasn’t as destructive as the boys had hoped as one witness claims “They seemed to get angry about the failure of the bomb, it didn’t do anything apart from create a lot of smoke…that’s when they started shooting randomly into the smoke, killing whoever was in their way”. This proved to be their most successful and fatal move as they managed to kill 15 people in the space of a 6 minute shooting spree. However it is believed that the boys thought they had killed a lot more than they actually had, due to many passing out from the toxic fumes coming from the detonated bomb in the corner. Many hid under the tables and escaped with minor injuries, however the mental damages are sure to be much more apparent as the reality of what has happened sinks in further.
The boys then went on their final journey through the school, “passing bodies without a flicker of remorse” shooting a further 4 pupils, both male and female and a member of staff, believed to have crawled from the staff room down two flights of stairs to use the office phone to get help. The three boys exited the building through the front door at approximately 9:52am GMT, they lined up on the steps leading to the office and in perfect synchronisation each lifted their guns to their temples, pulled their triggers and shot themselves, all falling to the floor in a heap, at exactly the same time. This was captured on camera by several students and passers-by, but more eerily it was seen by many of the students and teachers who had taken refuge by exiting the school through the front or side doors. It had taken the police 3 and a half minutes to arrive at the scene but the SWAT team hadn’t arrived in time to see this. The local police force weren’t allowed to enter the building as they were unsure as to what was behind the doors and what was to become of them if they entered, the building had also been put into lock down, nobody was allowed in or out, despite the pupils and teachers fleeing from fire exits and lower windows.
The three boys are believed to have been friend since they started the school in year 7 and have always had positive reports, with one teacher describing {NAME] as a “delightful student to teach”. They have no previous criminal convictions, with one of them having a formal warning for being rowdy on the streets back in 2009. However further investigations at [NAME’S] house has led the police search to a note card with a simple website address scrawled on and left on his pillow. This website is in a blog format and has seemingly been set up 2 years ago by the trio. It documents their preparation for this spree and gives every detail, almost compiling a storyboard for how they went about planning this horrific episode. Inspector Dawn Potter released a statement at 11:03pm GMT last night stating “We have closed our searching of the perpetrators houses and have moved our attention to our findings on the internet. The website has been taken down and all traces of it removed from the general public. This is a very concerning matter we have in our hands and we wish to deal with it in the best way possible”. She was later criticised for not mentioning any of the thirty two other victims and their families.
The school has been closed to allow for the forensic teams to enter and for the police to gather their evidence, it is unknown as to how long this will take and what damage has been done to school property. However it has been rumoured that the school will now remain shut for the rest of the term, with some students being transferred and taught in a different location. It is unknown as to how long this procedure is going to take and whether all students will be involved or just ones with upcoming exams.
Families of the victims are still being informed, with lists of survivors’ names being put up on a website. This is obviously a very worrying time for parents as their child’s name may not be up on the website yet due to there being approximately 2000 pupils present yesterday. Parent Jenny Humphries told us this morning “I didn’t know [my daughter] was alive until 7 hours after the news first broke, that was solely the worse 7 hours of waiting in my whole life. I can’t imagine what people must be feeling now if their child’s name isn’t up yet”. A police representative issued the following notice “We are doing all we can, and as quickly as possible, to inform all parents of their child’s whereabouts, however this may take longer than anticipated given the circumstances and the emergence of other information being given at any time. We respect that this is a hard time and cannot express our sympathy enough, however we ask for your patience if you wish for this to be done thoroughly and to the best of our ability”. A representative from the school is yet to comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment