Alarms were raised early Friday when reports of a school shooting at Forest High School in Ocala, Fla. emerged, not just because of the recent Valentine’s Day school shooting Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, but also the fact of this one taking place on the anniversary of the Columbine school shooting and the day students planned to participate in a national walkout over gun violence.
Concerns diminished when it was learned that only a 17-year-old was injured and that he was shot in the ankle. But new details have emerged about the suspected shooter, 19-year-old Sky Bouche, that should raise concerns once again.
Bouche, who, according to Ocala Banner Star, faces terrorism and other charges, did on on-camera interview with the news outlet from the Marion County Jail.
Here are the main takeaways.
1) He says he didn’t feel hatred or anger, but “adrenaline.”
Bouche said he grabbed a sawed-off shotgun Friday morning and felt “this adrenaline rush.”
“It’s not anger, it’s not hatred, it’s an adrenaline rush that, you know, I’m about to do something. I spend most of my time in a room alone so I’m getting this rush, so that’s what I was feeling,” he said.
2) He said that a crying girl made him stop.
After leaving a bathroom with the shotgun in hand and firing off a round, Bouche said a girl who was right in front of him crying and not running away made him put the gun down.
“I could’ve shot her, but I just, I don’t know, I just couldn’t do it,” he said.
He said he then surrendered himself to a teacher.
3) He said he bought the gun without a background check a week after Parkland.
Bouche told the Star Banner he bought the 1930 gun through an online service and that “there’s no paper on it.” He said he watched VICE News and “they showed ways how to get a gun without a background check” through a website called Armslist.
He said he knew he shouldn’t have the gun.
4) He said his “first memory is violence and conflict.”
Bouche said he grew up around violence and has a need to express violence, which had until now been satisfied through martial arts. He said a knee injury has prevented him from doing so and he lashed out.
“I couldn’t express it in violence in a martial arts place, so I expressed it in violence in public, which I shouldn’t have done,” he said.
He denied that he was mentally ill but said that he grew up around bipolar, schizophrenic people in his family “that are violent and scream pretty much on a daily basis.”
5) He said he was “sorry” to the student he wounded, but doesn’t have anything to say.
Bouche said he fired a shot through the door and heard a scream he’d never heard before.
When asked if he was sorry for shooting the 17-year-old, he said “Yeah.”
“He can hate me all he wants, doesn’t matter anymore,” he continued.
He said he doesn’t have anything to say “because it’s just a storm, you know, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. You’ve got a tornado coming through. You don’t know if this wind’s going to make a tornado or just like, you know, a breeze.”
[Screengrab via YouTube]
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