Police were dispatched to Mount Horeb Area Middle School on reports of someone moving towards the middle school with a backpack and a long gun on May 1. Police found a teen matching the description east of the school’s main entrance.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, the boy did not comply with officers’ commands to drop the weapon, and police shot him after he pointed the weapon at them.
“Lifesaving measures were deployed but the subject died on scene,” the statement said. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the boy was identified as student Damien Haglund, 14. No one else was injured, and he did not make it inside the building. The Mount Horeb police officers who were involved remain on administrative leave in accordance with agency policy.
An emergency alert went out to all schools in Mount Horeb, WI as well as the surrounding area, causing a lockdown. The Mount Horeb School District remained in lockdown for eight hours following the event.
“I’m literally shaking to death and can hardly breathe,” Alyssa Kopczynskie, a mother of a Mount Horeb Middle School student said. “It’s not something that you would ever think would happen to you… I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after this.”
Mount Horeb Area School District Superintendent Steve Salerno suggested that without recent security upgrades, “this could have been a far worse tragedy.”
He said students immediately told school staff about seeing someone suspicious outside the building but did not elaborate. “It’s an experience that you just pray to God every day that you just don’t ever have to enter into,” Salerno told reporters.
