JOYCE — A 13-year-old boy shot and killed himself Wednesday morning before about 18 students in a classroom at Crescent School.
His family, friends, fellow students and teachers don’t know why.
And no suicide note has been found, said Clallam County Sheriff Joe Martin.
Law enforcement agencies and school officials would not confirm the boy’s identity, but he was identified later by friends and fellow students as Joe Rogers, a seventh-grader at the school.
The boy died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest from a .22-caliber rifle that he had carried into the classroom in a guitar case, Clallam County Undersheriff Fred DeFrang said.
The shooting occurred just before 10 a.m. Wednesday in teacher Deborah Hibbard’s classroom — during second-period language arts class.
The boy carried the guitar case into the classroom, in a portable building on the east side of the campus, and sat in a corner desk, DeFrang said.
About two hours later, shortly before the end of class, Hibbard sent another student to the back of the classroom to help the boy with a project, De Frang said.
Thirteen-year-old Kaleb Connely, who was putting his books away, said he saw the boy pull what looked like a BB gun from his guitar case.
“I looked back and saw he had it pointed at his chest,” said Connely, who identified himself as Joe’s best friend.
According to Connely, the boy said, “Mrs. Hibbard,” and the teacher, seeing him with the gun, asked if he had permission to have the weapon.
Then he pulled the trigger.