Red Bluff Daily News

April 28, 2015

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ByDonnaGordon Blankinship The Associated Press SEATTLE A popular teacher is being hailed as a hero after tackling a 16-year-old student who fired two shots into the air Monday at a Washington state high school, police and students said. No one was injured after the teen shot toward the ceiling in the school com- mons before classes began at North Thurston High School in Lacey, about 60 miles southwest of Seat- tle, authorities said. The shooter is in custody. Students say Brady Ol- son, who teaches Advanced Placement government and civics, stopped the shooter. Anthony Rybalkin, 16, said he and a group of friends were hanging out near the lunch tables when he heard a loud boom. He looked up and saw a class- mate from his sixth-period class walking down the stairs from the gym into the common area with a cigarette in his mouth and a gun in his hand. "We thought it was fake for a second. Then he shot off another round," said Rybalkin, who said he was about 20 feet away from the shooter. "Everyone just started running out the back door." Rybalkin tripped and fell as he ran away and turned his head to see if the shooter was coming his way. That's when he saw Olson come up behind the shooter and tackle him. Two other teachers or adminis- trators jumped on the teen and held him down, Ry- balkin said in a phone in- terview a few hours after the shooting. "When Mr. Olson tackled him, he still had it (the gun) in his hand. I don't know if one of the other teachers took it or not," Rybalkin said. He said the shooter was a new student and had joined his class within the past week or so. School district spokes- woman Courtney Schrieve confirmed that the shooter was enrolled at the school, but she didn't know how long he had been a student. Schrieve said the school was being swept for a bomb as a precaution and wasn't sure if students would be re- turning to class Tuesday. "The dangerous thing is it was right before school starts. The kids would have all been in the commons," Schrieve said. The district had just been practicing safety drills and active shooter drills, and "it obviously paid off," she said, touting Olson as a good per- son. The shooting comes just months after another one in Washington state left five students dead, includ- ing the gunman. In Octo- ber, 15-year-old Jaylen Fry- berg shot the students and then himself after inviting them to lunch in the caf- eteria at Marysville-Pil- chuck High School north of Seattle. NORTH THURSTON Te ac he r ta ck le d tee n du ri ng Wash. high school shooting TEDS.WARREN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Parents and students walk away from an area at North Thurston High School on Monday where students were released to their parents a er a shooting at the school. STEVEN SENNE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Defense attorneys, from le , David Bruck, Timothy Watkins and Judy Clarke leave federal court in Boston at the end of the day's session on Monday. By Denise Lavoie The Associated Press BOSTON Boston Mara- thon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers urged a jury Monday to spare his life, portraying him as "a good kid" who was led down the path to terrorism by his increasingly fanati- cal older brother. David Bruck delivered the defense's opening statement in the penalty phase of Tsarnaev's trial, saying there is no pun- ishment Tsarnaev can get that would be equal to the suffering of the victims. "There is no evening the scales," Bruck said. "There is no point in try- ing to hurt him as he hurt because it can't be done." Tsarnaev, 21, was con- victed of 30 federal charges in the twin bomb- ings that killed three spec- tators and wounded more than 260 other people near the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013. He was also found guilty of killing an MIT police officer dur- ing the Tsarnaev brothers' getaway attempt. This stage of the trial will determine whether he is executed or spends the rest of his life behind bars. Bruck urged the jury to sentence the defendant to life in prison without the possibility of ever being re- leased. "His legal case will be over for good, and no mar- tyrdom, just years and years of punishment," the lawyer said. "All the while, society is protected." Bruck focused heavily on Tsarnaev's now-dead older brother, Tamerlan, depict- ing him as a volatile figure who led the plot. He said Ta- merlanwas"consumedbyji- had" and had "power" over an admiring Dzhokhar. Bruck said Tamerlan was loud and aggressive, got into fights, failed at ev- erything he did and never held a steady job, while Dzhokhar was a good stu- dent in high school, was loved by his teachers there, had many friends and never got in trouble. "He was a good kid," the lawyer said. But he said Dzhokhar started going downhill in college, when his parents divorced and re- turnedtoRussia,andhewas left with Tamerlan as the de facto head of the family. Tsarnaev was a 19-year- old college student at the time of the bombing. His brother, 26, was killed days after the attack when he was shot by police and run over by Dzhokhar during a chaotic getaway attempt. Bomber's lawyer urges jury to spare his life BOSTON TRIAL The Associated Press NEW YORK A gallery open- ing next month at the Ellis Island Museum will com- plete the story of America's immigration history. The Peopling of Amer- ica Center opens on May 20. The museum will then be renamed the Ellis Island National Museum of Immi- gration. The center's new exhibits focus on immigration after Ellis Island closed as a port of entry in 1954. The center also includes exhibits that explore the American immigrant jour- ney before the island be- came a processing station in 1892. Those galleries opened in 2011. With the new gallery's opening, the museum will chronicle the Ameri- can immigration experi- ence through the centu- ries, from the 1550s to the present. The stories will be told through a combination of audio stories, interpretive graphics, films and interac- tive displays. GALLERY New Ellis Island center to complete immigration story | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2015 4 B

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