The Rocori High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred at Rocori High School

Rocori high school

ROCORI High School is a high school that serves three Minnesota towns, whose names form the acronym "ROCORI": Rockville, Cold Spring, and Richmond. The school is located in Cold Spring, Minnesota about twenty miles southwest of St. Cloud. The school received its greatest media attention for a...

 on September 24, 2003 in Cold Spring, Minnesota

Cold Spring, Minnesota

As of the census of 2000, there were 2,975 people, 1,116 households, and 785 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,431.1 people per square mile . There were 1,145 housing units at an average density of 550.8 per square mile...

, United States. The shooting was perpetrated by 15-year-old John Jason McLaughlin who murdered students Seth Bartell and Aaron Rollins.

On the day of the shooting, McLaughlin brought a loaded .22-caliber handgun

Handgun

A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....

 to school with the intention of killing Bartell. He confronted Bartell in a basement hallway and fired two shots at him. The first shot wounded Bartell slightly in the chest while the second shot missed and hit Rollins in the neck. McLaughlin pursued Bartell as he fled into the gym and shot him in the forehead. At that point, gym coach Mark Johnson claims that McLaughlin aimed the gun at him. Johnson said he approached McLaughlin, raised his hand and shouted "No," and that McLaughlin then removed the bullets from the weapon and dropped it. Johnson then secured the weapon and escorted the boy to the school office.

Rollins died at the scene of the shooting, while Bartell died sixteen days later. During his trial, it was claimed that McLaughlin had intended only to wound Bartell, who he thought had been teasing him, by shooting Bartell in the shoulder. Rollins was supposedly not his intended target. McLaughlin's trial featured testimony from six mental health experts: "the three experts hired by Mr. McLaughlin returned a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and the three others a diagnosis of major depression in remission and an "emerging personality disorder." Only one expert, Dr. Maureen Hackett, testified that McLaughlin was insane under the conditions of the McNaughten rule and stated: "He thought he was doing a morally right thing ... It's almost as if Seth represents bullies." McLaughlin was nonetheless found guilty of first and second-degree murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

. In August 2005, he was sentenced to life in prison

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

.

Jason McLaughlin is currently incarcerated at Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater. He will not be eligible for parole

Parole

Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...

until 2038.

External links and sources

• Cold Spring School Shooting - Minnesota Public Radio News & Features page on the shooting
• Two Years After Rocori Shootings, Trial Begins - news item on the murder trial
• McLaughlin gets consecutive sentences in Rocori shootings - report following McLaughlin's sentencing