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. But 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.
Nine days later, Harris entered his former St. Louis high school and declared, “All of you are going to die.”
A new 456-page 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 a red-flag law. 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 in October 2023 in Lewiston, Maine, an investigation found missed opportunities to intervene in the shooter’s psychiatric crisis. And 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 investigation report in Harris' 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 all may have contributed to his depression, his family and former boss told investigators.
The police report makes no mention of him attending college. Instead, 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 that there was no planning and he didn’t want to do it.
But soon after, Harris began a countdown to the shooting. His plans included detailed maps of the school and a plan to target teachers, students and the LGBTQ community. He also had plans to burn down his family's home with them inside.
The psychiatrist prescribed medications, but Harris didn’t fill the prescriptions. The report says they developed an emergency plan.
Washington University did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Harris then stopped showing up for appointments.
On Oct. 8, he tried to buy a firearm from a licensed dealer in St. Charles, Missouri, but the transaction was blocked by an FBI background check. The report doesn't explain why, and police didn't respond to an email from the AP. The FBI merely provided a list of the 12 reasons for a denial with no other details.
Then on Oct. 10, Harris drove to a nearby suburb to pay a man $580 in cash for the rifle used in the shooting.
Harris’ family grew more concerned on Oct. 15, when two packages from gun and ammunition suppliers arrived. One of his sisters, Noneeka Harris, opened them, finding a body armor vest, magazine holsters and magazines. She then searched his bedroom and found the rifle inside an old TV box.
Harris' mother, Tanya Ward, called BJC Mental Health Services and staff there “deemed the situation as an immediate threat.” They advised her to take the items to the police department and tell officers about her son’s mental illness.
Police at the station told her they couldn’t take the firearm because Harris was of legal age to possess it. They said she should head home and an officer would meet them there. By the time she returned, Harris was home and insistent that he keep the gun.
His mother was adamant that the gun not be in the house, so the officers suggested a storage unit. The report said the officers also advised her on steps she needed to take to have her son deemed mentally unstable.
Federal law has banned some mentally ill people from buying guns since 1968, including those deemed a danger to themselves or others, who have been involuntarily committed, or judged not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial.
Ultimately, the firearm and other items were loaded into the trunk of Harris' sister's vehicle, including a box of ammunition that arrived the next day. She later drove her brother to a storage facility, which was about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the high school.
She told police she “knew something was going to happen.”
On Oct. 24, shots rang out as Harris entered his former high school.
It is unclear why Harris targeted the school. A security officer recalled him as somewhat popular and his grade school principal said he wasn’t bullied, according to the investigative report. But as he fired at a dance class, one student told police she heard someone yell, “I hate this school. I hate everybody.”
Fatally wounded, Alexzandria Bell initially ran toward the entrance before slumping to the ground, a security officer reassuring the 10th grader that help was on the way. But then she went quiet.
One class jumped out a window to escape after their physical education teacher, 61-year-old Jean Kuczka, stood between them and Harris. Kuckza was killed.
Harris eventually made his way to the third floor, hiding in a computer lab. The first officer to charge into the lab had a daughter at the school.
“I had everything to lose,” the officer, who was among those to open fire, recalled in the police report. He texted his daughter afterward, telling her, “I killed him.”
Harris' sister told investigators that when she heard about the shooting, she started driving toward the school but then went home instead, waking up her mother who had worked overnight.
Harris' mother later checked her voicemail. There was a message from a hospital asking if she still needed help with her son.
FILE - A photo of Alexandria Bell rests at the scene of a growing floral memorial to the victims of a school shooting at Central Visual & Performing Arts High School, Oct. 25, 2022, in St. Louis. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have won enough seats to control the U.S. House, completing the party’s sweep into power and securing their hold on U.S. government alongside President-elect Donald Trump.
A House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California earlier Wednesday, gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority. Republicans earlier gained control of the Senate from Democrats.
With hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Trump’s vision for the country.
The incoming president has promised to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation operation, extend tax breaks, punish his political enemies, seize control of the federal government’s most powerful tools and reshape the U.S. economy. The GOP election victories ensure that Congress will be onboard for that agenda, and Democrats will be almost powerless to check it.
When Trump was elected president in 2016, Republicans also swept Congress, but he still encountered Republican leaders resistant to his policy ideas, as well as a Supreme Court with a liberal majority. Not this time.
When he returns to the White House, Trump will be working with a Republican Party that has been completely transformed by his “Make America Great Again" movement and a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, including three that he appointed.
Trump rallied House Republicans at a Capitol Hill hotel Wednesday morning, marking his first return to Washington since the election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s good, we got to figure something else,’” Trump said to the room full of lawmakers who laughed in response.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who with Trump's endorsement won the Republican Conference's nomination to stay on as speaker next year, has talked of taking a “blowtorch” to the federal government and its programs, eyeing ways to overhaul even popular programs championed by Democrats in recent years. The Louisiana Republican, an ardent conservative, has pulled the House Republican Conference closer to Trump during the campaign season as they prepare an “ambitious” 100-day agenda.
“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Johnson said earlier this week. “The American people want us to implement and deliver that ‘America First’ agenda.”
Trump's allies in the House are already signaling they will seek retribution for the legal troubles Trump faced while out of office. The incoming president on Wednesday said he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, a fierce loyalist, for attorney general.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has said GOP lawmakers are “not taking anything off the table” in their plans to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, even as Smith is winding down two federal investigations into Trump for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Still, with a few races still uncalled the Republicans may hold the majority by just a few seats as the new Congress begins. Trump's decision to pull from the House for posts in his administration — Reps. Gaetz, Mike Waltz and Elise Stefanik so far — could complicate Johnson's ability to maintain a majority in the early days of the new Congress.
Gaetz submitted his resignation Wednesday, effective immediately. Johnson said he hoped the seat could be filled by the time the new Congress convenes Jan. 3. Replacements for members of the House require special elections, and the congressional districts held by the three departing members have been held by Republicans for years.
With the thin majority, a highly functioning House is also far from guaranteed. The past two years of Republican House control were defined by infighting as hardline conservative factions sought to gain influence and power by openly defying their party leadership. While Johnson — at times with Trump's help — largely tamed open rebellions against his leadership, the right wing of the party is ascendant and ambitious on the heels of Trump's election victory.
The Republican majority also depends on a small group of lawmakers who won tough elections by running as moderates. It remains to be seen whether they will stay onboard for some of the most extreme proposals championed by Trump and his allies.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, is trying to keep Democrats relevant to any legislation that passes Congress, an effort that will depend on Democratic leaders unifying over 200 members, even as the party undergoes a postmortem of its election losses.
In the Senate, GOP leaders, fresh off winning a convincing majority, are already working with Trump to confirm his Cabinet picks. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota won an internal election Wednesday to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longest serving party leader in Senate history.
Thune in the past has been critical of Trump, but praised the incoming president during his leadership election bid.
“This Republican team is united. We are on one team,” Thune said. “We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump’s agenda.”
The GOP’s Senate majority of 53 seats also ensures that Republicans will have breathing room when it comes to confirming Cabinet posts, or Supreme Court justices if there is a vacancy. Not all those confirmations are guaranteed. Republicans were incredulous Wednesday when the news hit Capitol Hill that Trump would nominate Gaetz as his attorney general. Even close Trump allies in the Senate distanced themselves from supporting Gaetz, who had been facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
Still, Trump on Sunday demanded that any Republican leader must allow him to make administration appointments without a vote while the Senate is in recess. Such a move would be a notable shift in power away from the Senate, yet all the leadership contenders quickly agreed to the idea. Democrats could potentially fight such a maneuver.
Meanwhile, Trump's social media supporters, including Elon Musk, the world's richest man, clamored against picking a traditional Republican to lead the Senate chamber. Thune worked as a top lieutenant to McConnell, who once called the former president a “despicable human being” in his private notes.
However, McConnell made it clear that on Capitol Hill the days of Republican resistance to Trump are over.
FILE - The Capitol is seen in Washington, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
