School Shooting in Pennsylvania
Principal Pronounced Dead at Hospital

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 24, 2003; 11:30 AM


RED LION, Pa. - A heavily armed 14-year-old boy shot his school principal inside a crowded junior high cafeteria Thursday morning, then killed himself, authorities said. The principal was transported to a hospital in critical condition where he was pronounced dead.

The shootings happened about 15 minutes before the start of classes at the Red Lion Area Junior High School, about 30 miles southeast of Harrisburg in south-central Pennsylvania.

The eighth-grader had multiple weapons and fired at least two shots with a handgun, said Red Lion Borough Police Chief Walt Hughes.

Principal Eugene Segro had been at the school for more than a decade and was believed to be in his early 50s, said Terry Robinson, the school district's business manager.

Neither Robinson nor Hughes was aware of any recent turmoil or student suspensions at the school.

"There's a lot of things we don't know right now," Hughes said.

Police and Red Lion Area Superintendent Larry Macaluso declined to name the teenager, but said he was not known for disciplinary problems. They did not know of any disputes between the student and Segro.

Other students said the principal was well-liked.

"He was fair and wasn't mean to anyone," said seventh-grader Matt Templeton, who by the lockers when students started running from the cafeteria.

"Everyone ran out of the cafeteria yelling 'He has a gun,"' said eighth-grader Danny Dulin.

The school's approximately 875 students were taken to nearby Red Lion Area Senior High School after the shooting, and officials planned to dismiss them for the day, as well as students from the high school and a nearby elementary school, Robinson said.

"We have the basic security, the building has a locked door, we have (security) cameras, the things we have in every school," Robinson said. He said the school does not have metal detectors.

Patrick McFadden, executive director of York County's Department of Emergency Services, said the student shot himself, but Hughes said the circumstances of the shooting were still under investigation.

The same school district was the site of a machete attack on a kindergarten class that injured a principal, two teachers and 11 of the 23 pupils in 2001. A Tennessee man angry about his divorce and allegations he had molested his stepdaughters pleaded guilty to the attack and was sentenced to 132 to 264 years in prison.

::in shock:: What?

yeah...i heard about that on the radio today.  it's creepy... :'( :-/

This is so sad :'(  My prayers are with the kids who witnessed this and the rest of the community.

Another sad chapter in the school shooting archives. :'(

It is sad that this is happening...but when I was in high school in the early and mid 90s, this was much more common...every year in NYC, several kids were shot dead. If you look at the stats, school crime has dropped off tremendously in recent years.

So while it's a shame that these things are happening, compared to ten years ago, it's a heck of a lot better...just to put it in perspective.

I've been thinking.

You know how the Sixties weren't necessarily the best time to grow up in, what with all the riots and assassination and war and lost innocence and all that?  And a lot of people will tell you that it all started with the death of JFK, but according to other sources, like the song "American Pie," everything ACTUALLY started to go bad a few years earlier, with the death of Buddy Holly.

And I was thinking, the 2000's don't look like they're shaping up to be a great decade either.  And for most people, the moment everything turned from good to crap was with September 11th.  But personally I'm thinking that everything started to go bad with Columbine.

Just thinking.








I need a drink.

This makes me glad I'm from small town Canada...a horrible thing to say, I know.  :-/

This also happened yesterday:

http://www.theksbwchannel.com/news/2154671/detail.html