State Police Say Tip Prevented More Injuries In Richmond School Shooting

RICHMOND, Ind. — Due to tips to police an eastern Indiana middle school was already on lockdown when a 14-year-old boy arrived Thursday morning.

The boy shot out glass in a locked door and entered the school before exchanging gunfire with officers inside.

Indiana State Police Capt. Dave Bursten says that the boy, who police said died inside the school from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, wasn’t a current student at Dennis Intermediate School in Richmond.

Bursten did not release additional information on the suspect or the weapon he used, but he said officials are extremely grateful that someone alerted them about the potential for violence.

That tip meant the school was on lockdown when the teen arrived around 8:20 a.m.

The person who called in the tip was not identified.

No officers and no one else at the school were injured during the shooting at the school about 60 miles east of Indianapolis near the Indiana-Ohio state line.

The school has about 650 students from grades 5 through 8.

Bursten said that because of the tip, the responding officers “knew who they were looking for, they confronted him, he shot out the glass door, entered the school and the officers pursued.”

Richmond Police Chief Jim Branum told the Palladium-Item that police and school officials were notified that an armed person was heading to the school with the intention of hurting people.

Branum said the boy eventually ended up on the second floor of the school’s south stairwell, where there was an exchange of gunfire before the teen took his own life.

The Palladium-Item newspaper reported that Indiana State troopers and officers with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had gathered at a residence in Richmond believed to be the boy’s home.

By 9 a.m., Richmond Community Schools had declared the school building secure. Students from the middle school were then bused to Richmond High School for parents to pick them up.