Hostages of school gunman tried to keep him at ease

           Samuel Hengel, a 15-year-old student at Marinette High School, held his teacher and two dozen classmates’ hostage for more than six hours on Monday, Nov. 29.  He reported to his class looking normal and had nothing with him, later he asked his teacher if he could use the restroom and came back into the classroom with a backpack.  The backpack contained two semiautomatic handguns, ammunition and a knife he also had bullets in his pockets.  The teacher was showing a movie in her class and Hengel asked his classmates how they were doing, and then he snapped.  He first shot a hole in the wall and fired two more rounds at the film projector.  One student questioned why nobody else in the school seemed to hear the shots. After shooting those rounds he shot the last one at himself.  Hengel then sat on the teachers stool in front of the class; he pulled out another gun and laid it on the podium along with more ammunition.  This is when students began to get scared, although he never said anything to anyone.  His cell phone rang and he snapped it in half then telling everyone in the room to put their phones in the middle of the room. 

            While this was happening his friend started talking to him about things he enjoyed doing, like hunting and fishing.  Samuel talked with them and they seemed to keep him somewhat calm.  They talked about fun things they remembered, and even had him laughing at one point.  After talking and being in there for a while it was 3:30 p.m. when a call came over the intercom for a parent looking for his daughter who hadn’t answered his call.  He let her go and pointed a gun at the principle and told him to get out, the principle called 911.  Police called the classroom phone to try and talk to Samuel but he refused and the teacher did the talking.  At about 7:40 p.m. some students had to use the bathroom and he let three of them go, another later had asked but was forced to go in the garbage can in the classroom.  Once the teacher put the phone down he fired three rounds at the phone and computer.  SWAT officers broke down the door at rushed at him, he picked up another gun and pointed it at his head.  One officer grabbed his arm but wasn’t in time before the trigger was squeezed and it was to late to save him. 

            Nobody knows why or what caused him to make this decision, his family said there were not any signs, or that he wasn’t bullied.  So many people are left to wonder why he did this, which will be the biggest question.   I give the students who were in the room a lot of credit for keeping him calm and not making things worse, that would be a very hard situation to try and stay calm and not freak out.