Seattle-area high school shooter texted victims to meet him for fatal lunch

Jaylen Fryberg, the popular freshman who shot five people then himself at Marysville-Pilchuck High School on Oct. 24, texted his three close friends and two cousins to meet him for lunch before shooting them, Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Monday. Fryberg killed two 14-year-old girls — Zoe Galasso and Gia Soriano — and critically wounded Shaylee Chuckulnaskit and cousins Andrew Fryberg and Nate Hatch.

Police aren't sure how Jaylen Fryberg got ahold of the .40 caliber Berretta handgun he used in the crime, though it was legally purchased by a relative. And there is still no known motive, though Fryberg was reportedly upset about a girl and had posted mopey things on Twitter recently. Unusually in school shootings, people in the community are publicly mourning for Jaylen as well as his victims, The Associated Press notes.

Freyberg was a member of a prominent Tulalip Indian Tribes family, a football player, and had recently been selected to the homecoming court. "Usually there's so much anger and frustration and bewilderment in the aftermath, and generally the shooter is not someone who was this loved over time," mental health attorney Carolyn Reinach Wolf tells AP. "This is a very different response."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up