School Killer's Animated Terror

MARCH 23--The Minnesota teenager responsible for Monday's high school shooting spree last year created a violent, blood-soaked video that included an animated character shooting four people and blowing up a police car before committing suicide, The Smoking Gun has learned. Using the alias 'Regret,' Jeff Weise, 16, last October posted online a 30-second animation entitled 'Target Practice.' Click here to view Weise's crudely animated Flash production. Weise posted a second short, 'Clown,' several weeks after uploading 'Target Practice' to the popular newgrounds.com multimedia web site. The 50-second 'Clown' ends with one character apparently being strangled by the clown. In a brief bio accompanying his Flash animations, Weise described himself as 'nothin but a Native American teenage-stoner-industrialist,' whose favorite movies included 'Dawn of the Dead,' 'Thunderheart,' and 'Elephant,' director Gus Van Sant's 2003 film about a Columbine-style school shooting (on his MSN profile page, Weise actually included an 'Elephant' movie still showing two teenage characters--dressed in camouflage and carrying duffle bags containing weapons--heading for a school door). The web page with links to Weise's two Flash animations includes his photo (seen above) and an e-mail address ([email protected]) that the teen used when posting 34 comments on the web site nazi.org, where Weise used the handles 'nativenazi' and 'todesengel,' which translates to 'angel of death' in German. According to police, Weise's killing rampage began with the murder of his grandfather and the man's female companion and ended at Red Lake High School, where he killed an unarmed security guard, a teacher, and five fellow students before apparently committing suicide. Seven others were wounded, including two teenage victims who remain in critical condition at a North Dakota hospital. (1 page)