COLUMBUS- A newly released police report says the Ohio teen accused of shooting a classmate in school turned the weapon around and asked the victim to kill him.
The report released Wednesday by the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office says the 17-year-old suspect expressed surprise that his victim was still alive before asking that he pull the trigger.
The report says the victim, 16-year-old Logan Cole, refused to shoot his attacker, who has been charged in juvenile court with attempted murder and felonious assault.
The account by Sheriff’s Detective Glenn Kemp says the suspect assembled the shotgun inside a school bathroom stall and waited several minutes until the first class bell rang.
According to a report in The Columbus Dispatch, the 17-year-old senior got the shotgun from his mother’s bathroom early that morning.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
He also made a homemade mask with an “anarchy symbol” and an expletive he wrote on it, and got a camouflage M60 field-jacket vest to wear when he shot up the school, according to a Champaign County Sheriff’s Office report released Wednesday.
Ely Serna has been charged in Champaign County Juvenile Court with two counts of attempted murder, three counts of felonious assault and several other charges for the shooting that happened just as school started Friday morning. The report says that he told detectives that he didn’t sleep the night before and drove his sister to school in his family’s Jeep Cherokee that morning, but that she had no idea of his plan.
He said he sneaked the disassembled, 12-gauge, pump-action, Mossberg shotgun into the school in his backpack and then hid in a bathroom stall and reassembled it with a screwdriver, the report says. The lengthy report, which details the initial interview of Serna by sheriff’s detectives, doesn’t hint at a motive. It does say, however, that the teenager also had a knife and a number of survival items in his backpack that day.
Serna told detectives that while huddled in the bathroom stall, he recited the Lord’s Prayer before he put on the mask and the vest and emerged. As he did so, 16-year-old junior Logan Cole walked into the bathroom and Serna shot him in the side and in the chest. He told detectives that he thought Logan was dead.
Serna then shot at a teacher, the report says, and went into the hallway and fired more rounds through a window and door. Only later did authorities realize a second student identified only as A.S. had been hit by pellets from the shotgun.
The report says that when Serna “retreated” into the bathroom, he was surprised to find Logan still alive.
“You’re not dead yet?” Serna told investigators he said to Logan. Then, Serna told authorities, he apologized to Logan, turned his 12-gauge shotgun on himself, pressed the muzzle to his temple and asked Logan to pull the trigger.
Logan refused, he said. Serna said he kicked the gun across the bathroom and hid in a stall. High school Principal Andy McGill came in and pinned him to the floor while a maintenance supervisor secured the gun in a trash can, according to the report written by sheriff’s office detective Glenn Kemp.
A message was left with the suspect’s public defender.