Posted on 03/28/2005 7:32:46 PM PST by jwalburg
ST. PAUL, Minn. - (KRT) - The teenage son of Red Lake Nation tribal chairman Floyd Jourdain has been arrested on federal charges stemming from last week's deadly school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.
Louis Jourdain, 15, a student at Red Lake Senior High School where Jeff Weise fatally shot five students, a teacher, a security guard, his grandfather and the grandfather's companion before killing himself March 21, was taken into custody Sunday evening, according to sources with knowledge of the arrest.
One of the sources, who spoke on the condition his name not be used, said Jourdain and Weise exchanged e-mails that discussed Weise's intent to go on a shooting rampage at the school. Other teenagers who were in e-mail contact with Weise also could face charges in the coming days.
The sources declined to provide details about the correspondence, but indicated the alleged conversations between Jourdain and Weise were troubling enough to prompt the filing of conspiracy-related charges.
After the shooting, some students had said Weise had intimated last year that he planned some sort of violent act at the school last April, but they said they didn't tell school officials or other authorities about it because they didn't take him seriously.
The youth arrested Sunday reportedly was arraigned on the unspecified charge during a closed, 15-minute hearing Monday before U.S. Magistrate Raymond Erickson in Duluth. There was increased security around the federal courthouse, and U.S. marshals guarded the doors to the courtroom to keep people out.
Floyd "Buck" Jourdain, the charismatic leader of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, was at the hearing, but declined to comment.
The hearing was closed because the defendant is a juvenile. U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger, whose office would prosecute any case arising from the shootings, acknowledged an arrest occurred, but said that because the person involved was a juvenile, he could not discuss any aspect of the case.
"I can't make any further comments about the nature, progress and direction of the investigation," he said. "It involves proceedings that are confidential by law."
He declined to say whether his office would seek to have the youth stand trial as an adult. The charges, he said, were the result of "an ongoing and continuing investigation."
In all, Weise killed nine people and then himself. He began by killing his grandfather and the man's female companion, then continued the killing spree at the school.
Weise, a self-described loner who was on anti-depressants and had had a troubled family life, was a prolific writer whose postings were scattered across numerous Internet discussion forums and chat groups. They ranged from his flirtation with neo-Nazism to writing short stories about zombies to discussions about Bigfoot.
Heffelfinger said last week that investigators have interviewed more than 300 people in connection with the shootings. The alleged e-mails between Weise and Jourdain were reportedly discovered during a forensic "autopsy" of Weise's computer at the Red Lake home of his grandmother, where he lived.
Jourdain's father earned praise for his handling of the aftermath of the shootings, which drew worldwide attention to the remote reservation in northwestern Minnesota.
On his Web site, Jourdain, who has two other sons, aged 22 and 3, called Louis his "pride and joy" after receiving an honor at school.
One source with knowledge of the case said the alleged e-mails between Jourdain and Weise took place days and weeks before the shooting, and involved discussions in which Weise - and perhaps others - expressed an intent to commit an act of violence at the school.
In his online writings last year, Weise described how school officials had suspected him of a threat to shoot up the school on April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday - and the day that two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., chose for their deadly attack. He wrote that he was suspected because of his admiration for Hitler and Nazism.
Federal prosecutions of juveniles are rare, "but we do them on occasion," said Heffelfinger.
Speaking generally about such cases, Heffelfinger said the federal court system does provide for juveniles to stand trial as an adult, much like in the state court system.
Former U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug said federal prosecutors can file a motion to transfer a case to adult status. A U.S. district judge then weighs several factors before deciding if the juvenile should be treated as an adult.
The factors include age, the charges, prior criminal record, intellectual development, psychological maturity, available programs to treat the juvenile's problems and whether the juvenile played a leadership role or influenced others to take part in a crime that involved drugs or firearms.
Red Lake is one of two Indian reservations in Minnesota where the U.S. attorney's office prosecutes violent crime. Federal authorities in many ways acts like a county prosecutor.
"We have 11 reservations in the state of Minnesota. In nine, the county attorneys prosecute violent crimes and other felonies," said Lillehaug, who now belongs to a Twin Cities law firm.
While federal juvenile prosecutions are not typical, they occur occasionally at Red Lake because of the U.S. attorney's special role on the reservation.
"Generally the federal government prosecutes very few juvenile cases. One exception is crimes on the Red Lake reservation," Lillehaug said.
U.S. prosecutors would not confirm the nature of the charges Monday.
Lillehaug said federal authorities could suspect the defendant of being highly involved with the shooting or they could be charging a lower-level offense seeking to gather more information.
"Because this is a juvenile prosecution, we don't know who is being charged and with what. We don't know if it's a charge related directly to the homicide or it whether it might be an unrelated charge that would be an incentive for a defendant to talk," Lillehaug said.
Lillehaug said prosecutions on Red Lake, which suffers a high violent crime rate, can pose special challenges.
"It's terribly hard. People are reluctant to testify," Lillehaug said.
"Everyone knows everybody and many people are related by blood. That makes it difficult to find good witnesses who are willing and committed to testifying."
During Lillehaug's tenure, the U.S. attorney's office employed a special liaison at Red Lake to simply keep track of witnesses and victims and ensure they showed up for court dates.
The charges would not be the first to follow a school shooting. After the Columbine shootings, two men who helped killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold buy guns pleaded guilty to state felony firearms charges and were sentenced to prison.
Philip Duran and Mark Manes both pleaded guilty to providing a handgun to a minor and possessing an illegal sawed-off shotgun used in target practice with the killers.
In videotape made a month before the shooting, Harris and Klebold thanked the pair for their help. "I'd like to make a thank you to Mark and Phil," Klebold said. "Very cool. You helped us do what we needed to do."
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