Attack Planned in Advance, Police Confirm
Two teenagers arrested for killing three fellow students at a Philippine school planned the attack in advance, police said Tuesday. The 14- and 15-year-old suspects are in custody after the rare mass shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban city, central Philippines, on Monday. Classes across the shaken city were canceled as 15 students were treated for gunshot wounds, more than double the initial count. One victim remains in critical condition.
“All indications point to the fact that it was planned,” national police spokesman Allen Rae Co. told a press briefing. He revealed the two boys huddled in a restroom for over an hour on the morning of the shooting. Police are investigating bullying as a possible motive, but Co. said an unidentified online group may have influenced the younger suspect.
Suspects Had Firing Range Training
The 14-year-old used a Glock 9mm pistol belonging to his aunt, a police officer who has been suspended and taken into custody. Regional police director Jason Capoy said the boy had experience firing weapons. “At one point, he was brought to a shooting range. He’s not that good or that highly skilled, but he knows how to manipulate the release of the magazine and how to reload,” Capoy said. The other gun, a .38 caliber pistol, was registered to a security agency where the 15-year-old’s grandfather once worked.
A witness described the two gunmen working down a school corridor, firing through windows in a “tactical” manner, Capoy added. The younger suspect was an avid player of GoreBox, an extremely violent first-person shooter video game. The Philippines’ cybercrime center issued a temporary ban on the game pending investigation.
Bullying and Online Influences Under Scrutiny
Bullying has been widely cited as a motivating force, a theory Tacloban police spokeswoman Evalyn Diaz said the investigation seemed to support. But Co. noted that online content may have played a role. “Based on our initial investigation, (the 14-year-old) was heavily influenced by online content. Aside from his posts of violent videos … We saw some indications that there is a group that might have influenced him to do this,” Co. said. He added, “I don’t think that it’s mutually exclusive. They could have been bullied and it further strengthened the online content’s influence on them.”
Co. said the 15-year-old would be tried as an adult if proven capable of “discernment” under Philippine law.
Trauma Grips School Community
Education Secretary Sonny Angara visited the wounded on Tuesday and said many students and teachers were “not ready to tell what happened.” He recounted, “When it was the principal’s turn (to share) she collapsed. That’s what we call trauma, which is very real.” Faculty who spoke with police described the two suspects as unremarkable. “The teachers have not told us anything bad about those two. They said they were just regular teens,” Diaz said.
School shootings are rare in the Philippines. Earlier this month, seven students were wounded in a knife attack by an older student in Cavite province.
