Red Lake School Shooting: Weise, Victims, and Lawsuits

The Red Lake school shooting took place on March 21, 2005, when sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise killed nine people and then himself in an attack that began at his grandfather’s home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota and ended inside Red Lake High School. It was the deadliest school shooting in the United States since Columbine in 1999, and it struck a small Ojibwe community that would spend the next twenty years grieving, litigating, and working to build a permanent memorial.¹

What Happened on March 21, 2005

Weise started the morning at the home he shared with his grandfather, Daryl “Dash” Lussier, a sergeant with the Red Lake Police Department. Using a .22-caliber firearm, he shot and killed Lussier and Lussier’s companion, 32-year-old Michelle Sigana. He then took his grandfather’s police-issued Glock pistol, shotgun, and Kevlar vest, climbed into the squad car, and drove to Red Lake High School.²¹

At the school entrance, unarmed security guard Derrick Brun rose from his desk and moved toward him. Brun was shot and killed in the hallway. Fellow guard LeeAnn Grant later credited him with buying the seconds that let her and nearby students escape.³⁴⁵

The attack inside the school lasted roughly ninety seconds.⁶ During it, student Jeff May rushed Weise with a pencil in an attempt to stop him. Within minutes, a team of four tribal police and conservation officers entered the building in a tactical diamond formation. Weise retreated into Dodds’ classroom and died by suicide. Ten people were dead in all, including Weise, and more than half a dozen others were seriously injured.¹

The Victims and Survivors

Derrick Brun was twenty-eight, the youngest of five children, and a former tribal police officer who had left the force after a back injury. He had been hired as a school security guard in the fall of 2004 at about $7.15 an hour with no benefits, and was scheduled to complete an EMT course the day after he was killed. At his funeral at St. Mary’s Catholic Mission on March 28, his body was escorted by an honorary Red Lake Police guard, and Senator Mark Dayton called him a hero.³⁷

Neva Rogers was not of American Indian descent but had dedicated her career to Red Lake students. She was known for buying scarves and gloves for children who couldn’t afford them and raising money to send students to Washington, D.C. Her son, Vern Kembitskey, said after her death, “There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her students.”⁵

Among the wounded, Steven Cobenais, then sixteen, was shot in the face and lost his left eye. He suffered brain damage, and over the years he lost his ability to speak. Bullet fragments remain in his skull, and he has required periodic hospitalization.⁸ Jeff May, the student who charged Weise with a pencil, suffered paralysis on most of his left side.⁹ Fifteen-year-old Cody Thunder was shot in the hip through a glass partition while sitting in biology class.¹⁰

Who Jeff Weise Was

Weise was a sixteen-year-old member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa who had grown up amid compounding family tragedy. His father, Daryl Lussier Jr., died by suicide in 1997 following a police standoff. His mother, Joanne, suffered brain damage in a car accident and was living in a nursing home. After the accident, Weise moved in with his paternal grandmother and later with his grandfather on the reservation.¹¹

Classmates described him as quiet and isolated. He stood about six feet tall and weighed roughly 250 pounds, wore black trench coats, combat boots, and eyeliner, and was reportedly bullied persistently. He had been held back several grades and had left school for medical reasons before being placed in a home-tutoring program. He had attempted suicide and had been prescribed Prozac.¹¹¹²

Online, Weise used screen names including “Todesengel” (German for “Angel of Death”) and “NativeNazi” on a website run by the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party, where he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and frustration about ethnic mixing on the reservation. Under the handle “Blades11,” he participated in horror fiction forums. He drew sketches in class depicting shootings and skulls.²

In April 2004, Weise had been questioned by police after someone threatened to shoot up the school on April 20, Hitler’s birthday. In an online post he acknowledged the inquiry, writing that he was being blamed because he identified as a National Socialist. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he was cleared following that investigation.¹³ The FBI stated after the shooting that investigators had not established a definitive motive, though Weise’s actions suggested planning.²

Why the FBI Ran the Investigation

Because the shooting occurred on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, the case fell under federal rather than state or local jurisdiction. Red Lake occupies an unusual legal position within Minnesota. Under Public Law 280, passed by Congress in 1953, criminal jurisdiction over most Minnesota reservations was transferred from the federal government to the state. Red Lake was explicitly exempted from that transfer.¹⁴ The federal Major Crimes Act further grants the federal government jurisdiction over serious crimes committed by Native Americans in Indian country.¹⁵ Law enforcement on the reservation is funded and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, not county sheriff’s departments.

The FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs led the investigation. Agents secured the scene, analyzed security tapes, examined Weise’s belongings and online communications, and interrogated numerous local teenagers who had exchanged instant messages with Weise about school violence. Investigators ultimately concluded that Weise had acted alone.¹

The only person charged in connection with the attack was Louis Jourdain, then sixteen, the son of Red Lake Tribal Chairman Floyd “Buck” Jourdain Jr. He was arrested on March 28, 2005, and initially accused of conspiracy to commit murder. Federal prosecutors eventually dropped that charge, and Jourdain pleaded guilty to a lesser count of making threatening interstate communications. Court documents indicated the threatening messages occurred between January 2003 and March 2005. He was sentenced in a closed hearing on January 13, 2006, to up to a year at a private juvenile rehabilitation facility and probation until age 21.¹⁶ The judge barred victims and their families from the proceedings, ruling they were not legal victims of the specific crime for which Jourdain was sentenced.¹⁷

The arrest placed Chairman Jourdain in an extraordinary position. He had been the public face of the community’s grief, ordering the reservation sealed to outsiders and managing the crisis response. In a public statement after his son’s arrest, he said: “Last week, I spoke on behalf of the Red Lake Nation as its leader and a saddened member of this community. Today, I speak as a father.” He insisted his son was innocent and predicted he would be cleared.¹⁸

Civil Lawsuits and Settlements

Twenty-one families of victims killed or wounded in the shooting filed civil lawsuits. In 2006, the families reached a $1 million settlement with the Red Lake school district. Of that amount, $900,000 was paid immediately, with $100,000 held in escrow until 2011 to cover potential additional claims. Families alleged the school had failed to adequately arm its security personnel. The settlement did not preclude further litigation against other parties.¹⁹

In 2008, the same plaintiffs settled a separate lawsuit against MacNeil Environmental of Burnsville, Minnesota, a firm the school district had hired to evaluate and improve campus security before the shooting. The families alleged the company had failed to develop adequate crisis plans. That settlement was for $1.5 million. Hennepin County District Judge Lloyd Zimmerman, who oversaw the distribution of funds, called it a “historic settlement of the most horrific school tragedy in Minnesota history.”²⁰

Missy Dodds, the math teacher in whose classroom the killings occurred, pursued a separate legal path. Her workers’ compensation case against the Red Lake school district resulted in a change to Minnesota law, establishing post-traumatic stress disorder as a viable basis for a workers’ compensation claim.²¹

Recovery and the Twentieth Anniversary

The aftermath at Red Lake unfolded quietly. School principal Chris Dunshee told reporters in the months after the attack that both staff and students continued to struggle, with delayed effects surfacing over time. Some students retreated into gang activity, and the school experienced a rash of bomb threats during one stretch. Dunshee and Superintendent Stuart Desjarlait both took medical leaves linked to stress and heart problems.¹²

Dodds spent roughly a decade battling PTSD. About five months after the shooting, she entered a five-week inpatient treatment program in Arizona and continued therapy for years. She described her anxiety bluntly: “I used to walk around Walmart with bacon in front of me… because that way it would stop a bullet.” She never returned to classroom teaching, and later became a speaker and training specialist for Safe and Sound Schools, a nonprofit focused on school safety.²²²¹

In 2015, filmmaker Billy Luther released a documentary titled Red Lake, profiling the recovery of Dodds, Jeff May, and student Ashley Lajeunesse.²² Lisa R. Beaulieu, who lost her daughter to suicide shortly after the 2005 tragedy, went on to serve as the school district’s wellness coordinator and suicide prevention specialist.⁴

On March 21, 2025, more than a hundred people gathered in the Red Lake High School gymnasium for a ceremony featuring a drum circle, prayer, and a communal meal. Organizers distributed white roses to the families of victims and to first responders.²³⁴²⁴

Survivor Whitney Spears told reporters the group had only “finally started our healing journey recently.” Dodds offered a characterization many in the community echoed: recovery is not about moving on but about “learning to live with it, learning to survive it every day.”⁴

1
MPR News. Red Lake Shooting Explained
2
CBS News. Troubled Life of Minnesota Shooter
3
NBC News. Slain Guard Hailed as a Hero
4
Star Tribune. Red Lake Hosting Day of Remembrance on the 20th Anniversary of School Shooting
5
Spokesman-Review. Red Lake Mourns Slain Teacher
6
InForum. Former Teacher Survivor of 2005 Red Lake School Shooting Demands Action in Wake of Uvalde
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Minnesota Public Radio. Three Funerals
8
Star Tribune. What Survivors of Red Lake, Rocori School Shootings Say in the Wake of Annunciation Attack
9
Indianz.com. Deep Wounds, Slow Healing
10
New York Times. Survivors of High School Rampage Left With Injuries and Questions
11
NBC News. Red Lake Shooter’s Background
12
Minnesota Injury. Deep Wounds, Slow Healing
13
The Guardian. Minnesota Gunman Steeped Himself in Dark Fantasy World
14
Minnesota Senate. Criminal Jurisdiction on Minnesota Indian Reservations
15
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Indian Country and the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010
16
NBC News. Red Lake Accomplice Sentenced
17
New York Times. Sentencing in Minnesota School Shooting Case
18
ICT News. Tribal Chairman’s Son Charged With Conspiracy
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MPR News. Red Lake Settlement
20
Indianz.com. Red Lake Shooting Lawsuit Settles
21
Safe and Sound Schools. Missy Dodds
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Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Documentary Examines Recovery After Red Lake School Mass Shooting
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Red Lake Nation News. Red Lake Grieves on 20th Anniversary of School Shooting
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MPR News. 20 Years Later, Lives Affected by the School Shooting in Red Lake Will Be Memorialized