The gunman, 14-year-old Barry Dale Loukaitis (/luːˈkaɪtɪs/; born February 26, 1981), killed his algebra teacher and two students, and held his classmates hostage before a gym coach subdued him.

Another student, 13-year-old Natalie Hintz, sustained critical gunshot wounds to the right arm and abdomen, and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

[4] Teacher and coach Jon Lane entered the classroom upon hearing the gunshots to find Loukaitis holding his classmates hostage.

His mother, Jo Ann Phillips, was a domineering woman who became increasingly distant and began speaking of suicide.

Unis claimed Loukaitis could not have bipolar disorder because his personality was not fully developed at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutors Donna Wise and John Knodell argued that Loukaitis had carefully planned the shooting,[16] getting ideas from the Pearl Jam song "Jeremy".

The original video showed the child putting the gun into his mouth, however the only images allowed to air were those of the children covered in his blood.

Prosecution also said that he had gotten ideas from the Stephen King novel Rage and the films Natural Born Killers and The Basketball Diaries.

[17] Loukaitis has also stated that he tried to model his life after the novel Rage's protagonist Charlie Decker, who kills two teachers and takes his algebra class hostage.