Another incident of mind control terrorism? The suspect in this case (Jason W. Pritchard) has been described as 'mentally ill' and a 'schizophrenic' -- as usual !!
"This man, something was wrong with him...He was threatening everybody. He came towards us a couple of times....He was rambling and saying religious stuff, stuff that made no sense."
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Four children stabbed in Anchorage elementary school, suspect in custody
Anchorage Daily News and Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (May 7, 2001 3:47 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Four children were stabbed by a man at Mountain View Elementary School in Anchorage this morning. The alleged assailant was later subdued by police. Initial reports were that the children were stabbed in the neck. The victims were rushed to two local hospitals. One was reported in critical condition and undergoing surgery at Providence Alaska Medical Center and another was in serious condition there, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Two other children were being treated at Alaska Regional Hospital, although their conditions were not immediately available. The suspect also was being treated at Alaska Regional after being shot with rubber bullets by police, according to police spokesman Ron McGee. The stabbings apparently occurred in the school playground before classes, police said.
Police shot the suspect with three rubber bullets as he fled inside the school, police said. Inside, teachers surrounded him until police took him into custody. The stabbing occurred around 8:15 a.m. shortly before classes were to begin.
Classes were dismissed for the day, and students were bused to nearby Tyson Elementary, where parents can pick them up. Evette Carmack rushed to the school from her job at Alaska Regional Medical Center, still dressed in green scrubs. She has two children at the school, fifth grader Christopher and second-grader Jasmine. She said she came as soon as she'd heard about the shooting. "I came from Chicago to get away from all this," Carmack said. "To get a better life for my kids."
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Deranged Man Stabs 4 Kids at Elementary School in Alaska
Monday, May 07, 2001
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A man who rambled and said "stuff that made no sense" stabbed four children at an elementary school Monday before he was subdued by police, authorities and witnesses said. The children were stabbed in the neck, but their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, Anchorage Police Department spokesman Ron McGee said. The victims were rushed to two hospitals.
The stabbing happened shortly before classes were to begin at Mountain View Elementary School. McGee said about 20 pupils witnessed the attack. Police shot the suspect, described as a man in his 30s, with three rubber bullets and took him into custody inside the school. He was also taken the hospital for treatment of the bullet wounds.
Randy Smith, chairman of the local community patrol, was among the first to arrive on the scene. He found the suspect in a classroom with a teacher and an injured boy. "He was threatening everybody. He came towards us a couple of times. We kept him from getting out of the classroom," Smith said. "He was rambling and saying religious stuff, stuff that made no sense."
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http://www.adn.com/nation/story/0,2360,264641,00.html
Accused attacker has history of offenses, mental disorders, self-mutilation.
By Molly Brown
Anchorage Daily News
(Published May 8, 2001)
The man accused of stabbing four elementary school students has been talking for years about killing children while they're young, before they grow up and become sinful, according to testimony by two psychologists during a 1999 court hearing. Jason W. Pritchard, 33, has a long history of run-ins with police in Anchorage and elsewhere in Southcentral Alaska and of harassing children on school grounds. Court files detail a history of serious psychological problems, including treatment at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, but authorities in the past reported trouble finding out much about him.
Two years ago, prosecutors reported that Pritchard was originally from Oregon, though they couldn't find any relatives there or here, and Pritchard has given a long list of home addresses in Alaska in recent years, including one at a counseling center and group home. Police on Monday said he appeared to be living in a car.
Pritchard was diagnosed with schizophrenia -- a mental disorder characterized by a separation of thought from emotions -- and a brain disorder brought on by a suicide attempt in 1998, according to Dr. David Sperbeck, a forensics psychologist who testified at the February 1999 hearing. That attempt to hang himself while at the Wildwood Correctional Center put him on life support for a while.
Sperbeck said Pritchard was sullen, depressed and basically nonverbal. He suffers from religious delusions that stem from the schizophrenia, Sperbeck testified, and at some point Pritchard mutilated himself by removing his genitalia. "He has been focused on his desire to get into heaven," Sperbeck testified. "He's got a multitude of spiritual delusions, and it has caused him to be suicidal and homicidal."
Sperbeck's testimony came at Pritchard's sentencing for a December 1998 criminal trespass in which Pritchard, a self-proclaimed excommunicated Jehovah's Witness, walked into Kingdom Hall in Anchorage during a service and urged churchgoers to commit suicide with him so they all could go to heaven, according to the charges.
After that incident, Sperbeck said, Pritchard repeatedly discussed his desire to kill children. Sperbeck urged the court to require 24-hour supervision and said while therapeutic medication made Pritchard competent to stand trial, it didn't curb his delusions. At the same hearing, another psychologist, Dr. Lawrence Maile, said Pritchard had exhibited his dangerous tendencies over a long period. Sometimes he planned his actions and other times he just acted out, Maile said.
Pritchard did not believe he was mentally ill. Pritchard's illness didn't affect his intelligence, and he was good at keeping his homicidal tendencies hidden from doctors, according to city prosecutor Carmen ClarkWeeks, who was trying to keep Pritchard in jail. He preferred to be sent to Alaska Psychiatric Institute, ClarkWeeks said, because he had been there before and had walked away.
He also had refused to take his medication at API and wouldn't eat while in jail, according to testimony. In the past, he was uncooperative and refused to get dressed while in jail, missing several court appearances because he was naked, according to court files.
At the hearing in February 1999, Judge Stephanie Rhoades sentenced Pritchard to 130 days for trespass, a relatively minor misdemeanor, enough time for the Department of Corrections to seek an involuntary commitment to API if corrections officials chose to. The Anchorage court record is silent on what happened next, until Pritchard showed up Monday at Mountain View Elementary School with a filet knife.
Pritchard has lurked around school grounds before. In 1998, he was convicted of second-degree stalking, a misdemeanor, after a series of incidents at schools in Homer. He was first reported entering the junior high school and talking to students about sex. A parent, Stephanie Migdal, said Monday she complained to school officials after her daughter told her Pritchard had touched the hands of several girls.
ClarkWeeks said Pritchard was reading the Bible to the children in Homer and talking to them about appropriate sexual behavior. He wasn't interested in sexual activity with the children, she said. Homer police warned Pritchard to stay away from schools, but Pritchard had already become fixated on a 14-year-old boy, ClarkWeeks said. He followed the boy home "like a lost puppy," she said.
In the Homer case, Pritchard was sentenced to 120 days in jail and five years' probation and was forbidden from having unsupervised contact with minors, according to the Homer court file.
In 1998, Pritchard was convicted of assault, criminal mischief and trespass for an incident at a rooming house, according to court files. Pritchard was hanging out with his brother and a female and at some point threatened his companions and beat his head, shoulders and face against the wall, according to court testimony. He broke the glass protecting a fire extinguisher and threatened the hotel proprietor while he tried to cut himself, ClarkWeeks said.
Pritchard's record also includes a failure to appear in court in 1998, three 1997 trespass convictions, 1996 reckless driving, drunken driving in 1995 and 1996, and driving without a license in 1994, ClarkWeeks said. ClarkWeeks told a judge in 1999 that she tried to locate Pritchard's family by phoning all the Pritchards listed in the Kenai Peninsula phone book but couldn't find any relatives. Pritchard is from Eugene, Oregon, she said, but she couldn't find friends or family members there. Pritchard listed Eastside Carpet as his employer, she said, but it was a business he owned.
On Monday, officials said it appeared Pritchard had recently been living out of his car, which police impounded and searched at the corner of Irwin Street and McPhee Avenue, two blocks from the school. Police didn't say what was found in the car. Over the past year, Pritchard listed addresses in Anchorage and Anchor Point. One Anchorage location, 512 E. 15th Terrace, is the Aurora Lodge group home. A resident contacted there Monday said Pritchard was no longer living there.
The other address, 2735 E. Tudor Rd., is an office of Southcentral Counseling Center, a nonprofit community mental health service. Ken Taylor, executive director, said he could not confirm whether Pritchard had been treated at Southcentral, citing patient confidentiality.
[Reporter Molly Brown can be reached at mbrown@adn.com or 257-4343. Reporters Lucas Wall and Tom Kizzia contributed to this story. They can be reached at lwall@adn.com and tkizzia@adn.com. ]
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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010507/ts/crime_stabbing_dc_5.html
Monday May 7 7:49 PM ET
(Updates with New Information)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A 33-year-old homeless man stabbed four boys in the neck at an elementary school on Monday while rambling incoherently before he was shot by officers firing rubber bullets and arrested, police said. All of the boys, who ranged in age from 8 to 10, were taken to a local hospital for treatment, where one was listed in critical condition and the other three were in serious condition. Two of the boys were brothers.
Police charged Jason Pritchard, 33, who had reportedly been living in his car, with four counts of first degree assault and four counts of attempted murder. He was being held on $2 million bail. A police spokesman said Pritchard had a ``fairly extensive'' criminal record, and stormed into Mountain View Elementary School, rambling incoherently, and stabbed the boys in the neck.
Some of the children were outside in a school yard receiving breakfast when the attacks took place, the spokesman said.
``We know the situation was dynamic and part of it occurred outside,'' the Anchorage police deputy said. Keith Lacek, an 11-year-old student at Mountain View, said Pritchard had been hanging around the school in recent days. But school superintendent Carol Comeau said she ``had not heard that.'' A spokeswoman for the Anchorage School District said classes at the school were canceled for the rest of the day and Tuesday. Additional security measures were to be discussed at a school board meeting on Monday night.
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http://www.adn.com/nation/story/0,2360,264643,00.html
Slasher wounds kids
Knife-wielding assailant brings morning of terror to Mountain View
By Doug O'harra, Lisa Demer And Elizabeth Manning
Anchorage Daily News
(Published May 8, 2001)
A man who told one victim "Get ready to meet your maker" attacked children with a fillet knife early Monday morning at Mountain View Elementary School, slashing and seriously injuring four young boys before he was cornered by teachers and disarmed by police. The attack sent some children screaming into the school and others fighting to protect their classmates. It ended minutes later with dozens of children locked in rooms guarded by teachers.
A teacher confronted the assailant in a classroom and used a desk and then a plastic bin to keep the man off a wounded, sobbing boy who lay bleeding on the floor, according to a witness. The boy "was crying and talking, saying 'Please don't kill me, please don't kill me,' " said Randy Smith, head of the Mountain View Community Patrol, who responded to the scene and helped other teachers prevent the man from escaping the room. "He was ranting and raving and threatening all of us with the knife."
Within minutes, police armed with several types of weapons entered the classroom and shot the man in the arm, leg and hand with a beanbag projectile containing steel shot. The final blow broke the man's hand, forcing him to drop the knife, according to Anchorage police.
Jason W. Pritchard, 33, was charged with four counts of first-degree attempted murder and four counts of first-degree assault.
Pritchard, who has an extensive criminal record and a history of psychiatric problems, was taken to Cook Inlet Pre-Trial Facility and held in lieu of $2 million bail. The four victims, all 8 and 9 years old, each underwent surgery Monday for wounds to the neck, throat and head. All are expected to survive, said police spokeswoman Anita Shell.
Cody Brown, 8, and brothers Billy Moy, 8, and Eric Moy, 9, were listed in serious condition in the pediatrics intensive care unit at Providence Alaska Medical Center. The fourth victim, Stephan Hansell, 8, was in fair condition at Alaska Regional Hospital on Monday evening.
"He was really concerned about his classmates when he woke up," said an uncle of Hansell's, Rob Lee. "He's pretty tough." The attack triggered a massive response and investigation by Anchorage police, with more than 30 detectives combing the school grounds and the school hallway for evidence and interviewing at least 50 children and teachers who witnessed the attack, according to Deputy Chief Mark Mew.
School superintendent Carol Comeau said the district will review all safety procedures at Mountain View and other schools. Classes were canceled at Mountain View today to allow staffers and children to meet with counselors. Police were still sorting out the sequence of events Monday and don't know what motivated the attack, said spokesman Ron McGee.
When first in custody, the man lay facedown on the seat of the patrol car, according to Sgt. Bill Kaas. Then he would not answer questions or give his name, forcing police to identify him with fingerprint records and officers who recognized him from a previous incident, said Police Chief Walter Monegan.
"We heard that he may have known one of the students, but we can't confirm that," McGee added. "He has been uncooperative. He is not saying anything." Children and staffers from the school were bused to nearby William Tyson Elementary, where they were reunited with parents and questioned by police.
Interviews with students who witnessed the attack describe a horrifying bolt of swift and inexplicable aggression. The man approached the school about 8:15 a.m. while some students were lining up to go inside for breakfast and others were on the playground, witnesses said. Police later estimated that about 50 students were outside the school at the time.
Third-grader Parrish Rowell, 9, said he was walking to school with some friends when he noticed a man on foot behind them. Moments later, Rowell saw the man trying to grab 8-year-old Potasi Uta. Rowell ran into the school. Uta said he jumped away and then curled up into a ball on the ground next to a wall. Without speaking, the man bent over and tried to cut him, Uta said.
The boy leaped up, struck the man in the stomach with his elbow and ran into the parking lot and then into the school. He said a teacher told him to hide in his classroom. Billy and Eric Moy were waiting to be let into the school for breakfast with their sister, Ashley Smith, 11. She saw the man grab one brother and cut him. "He just came up to him," she said. "He had a knife and started cutting him, his throat." Then she saw the other brother holding his throat, which was bleeding.
Sixth-grader Kevin Bruno, 12, was playing basketball before school when some other kids told him a little boy was getting stabbed. He ran over to where the man was hurting a boy, whose name he didn't know. "I saw him on top of the kid, stabbing him. I told him to get off. He wouldn't, so I hit him," said Bruno, visibly shaken.
Bruno threw himself into the man with his shoulder, "like a football hit," and knocked him away. He told the boy to get to the school nurse. The man jumped up and chased Bruno and some other children. Bruno told them to run into the school. But one of the children, later identified as Cody Brown, didn't get away, Bruno said. "He got this other kid and tried to slit his throat," Bruno said. Bruno ran around the building and knocked on windows to alert teachers. Through a window, he could see the man grappling with a male teacher.
In one of the most chilling incidents, Stephan Hansell, a second-grader, was asked for his name by the man, whom he didn't recognize, according to his uncle Lee. "OK, Stephan, get ready to meet your maker," the man told the boy, according to Lee. Hansell was then cut from his temple to near his throat, according to his father, Dwayne Hansell.
As the children ran into the school, teachers directed them into classrooms and offices with the idea of locking the doors, following a drill practiced last week. Mountain View principal Doris Ross called 911 at 8:28 a.m., according to police logs. A great deal of blood was left in the main hall, according to witnesses.
Fourth-grader Pazong Yang, 10, said she was taken into a classroom by a teacher, who ordered the children to get under tables and said she would lock the door. But before the teacher could seal off the room, the suspect rushed in, Yang said. The man pushed the teacher down, and then a male teacher rushed in and knocked the attacker down. The children then ran out of the room, Yang said.
Randy Smith and George Smith, members of the Mountain View community patrol, were taking a car to a mechanic when they heard the call on the scanner. "We were there in about 30 seconds," Randy Smith said. The two men entered the school and saw commotion down the hall in front of a classroom on the east end. The attacker had pushed desks into the door, which had broken glass. Randy Smith said he and several teachers pulled the desks out of the way and confronted the attacker in the room.
As Pritchard was cornered in the classroom, he kept muttering to himself about God, George Smith said. "He said, 'Everything is going to be OK. . . . We're all going to heaven to see God,' " George Smith said. A male teacher kept the attacker off a wounded, crying boy lying on the floor, Randy Smith said. The identities of the boy and the district employee could not be confirmed Monday.
"The first two officers showed up, and they confronted him with their guns drawn and got his undivided attention," Randy Smith said. "It was just long enough for the teacher to grab the kid and drag him out into the hall."
Randy Smith praised the actions of the teachers in the school. "They saved that boy's life," he said. "Everybody did the right thing, and fortunately APD did the right thing." In the aftermath, police scoured the grounds and searched the roof. Officers with dogs checked the woods for other victims. Several neighborhood kids stood across the street looking at the school, parts of which were cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.
Francisco Ozuna said he hid in the classroom next to where the attacker was finally stopped. "I felt sad," he said. "I thought he was going to kill everybody." By midday, Classroom 13, where Pritchard was taken into custody, was still littered with papers and markers and overturned desks. Through a window, one could see the day's schedule on the board: play practice at 9 a.m., math at 10 a.m. A brightly colored kid's backpack lay on the floor. A large pool of blood had soaked the carpet. Nearby was a bloody print of a child's right hand.
[Doug O'Harra can be reached at do'harra@adn.com or 257-4334, Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390 and Elizabeth Manning at emanning@adn.com or 257-4323. Reporters Tim Pryor, Rosemary Shinohara and Lucas Wall contributed to this story. ]
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MARtin F. ABErnathy [abemarf@aol.com]
