Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Details emerge about the N.M. school shooter

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Two days after gunfire erupted in a Northern New Mexico high school, details have emerged to indicate that the shooter was a 21-year-old former student at the school who impersonated a student in order to gain entry to the building and create as much carnage as he could before taking his own life, ABC News reports.

The shooter has been identified as William Atchison, and he left a note on a thumb drive that was found on his person after the attack Thursday morning at Aztec High School near the Colorado border. “Work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. I just want out of this [expletive],” the note said.

Killed by his hand were Francisco I Fernandez and Casey J Marquez, both students at the school. After Atchison shot Fernandez, a student known for his skill on the computer, he walked out into the hallway and shot Marquez dead. In addition to being a student at the school, she was a cheerleader and looking forward to performing at the Orange Bowl.

“She lit up pretty much any room we were all in,” the network quoted another student as saying about her. “She was such a fun person to be around.”


(Casey’s Facebook profile)

After Marquez was killed, Atchison reportedly walked up and down the hallways of the school, firing randomly, just as he did at Fernandez and Marquez, who were not known to be targeted by Atchison. Police say he had legally purchased the 9mm Glock pistol used in the attack a month ago. He had no criminal record—not even a traffic ticket—and his only known encounter with law enforcement was when the FBI questioned him in 2016 over a comment he had posted on a gaming website about weapons that could be used in a mass shooting.

Paul Katulahttps://news.schoolsdo.org
Paul Katula is the executive editor of the Voxitatis Research Foundation, which publishes this blog. For more information, see the About page.

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