2017 Aztec High School shooting
On December 7, 2017, a school shooting occurred at Aztec High School in Aztec, New Mexico, United States. The perpetrator, William Atchison, a 21-year-old former student of Aztec High, entered the school disguised as a student and hid in the school restroom. He was discovered by student Francisco Fernandez, whom he then shot and killed, before killing another student in the hallway. He attempted to enter a classroom, but a teacher barricaded the door with a couch, preventing him from entering. Atchison then killed himself.
Atchison was prolific online, including on neo-Nazi and white nationalist websites. In March 2016, he was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for threatening to commit a mass shooting. The same year, he was in contact with the eventual perpetrator of the 2016 Munich shooting, who killed nine people in Germany later that year. The FBI dropped their investigation after they determined that Atchison, at the time he was investigated, did not own a firearm, and after he convinced them that his threats were merely "trolling". He bought the gun used in the shooting in November 2017.
The motive for the shooting is disputed, with the Southern Poverty Law Center arguing the shooting was motivated by far-right extremism and incel ideology, while the sheriff's office stated that there was no evidence the shooting was related to Atchison's views, instead arguing that he had personal problems and wanted to kill people for fame. After the shooting, the mother of one of the victims sued the FBI, the Aztec police, and the school district in two lawsuits for failing to prevent the attack; the lawsuit against the FBI was dismissed. The German police were separately criticized for failing to investigate the tie after the Munich shooting. The state of New Mexico authorized additional funding for school safety in response to the shooting.
Background
is a small town in San Juan County, in northwest New Mexico near the Navajo Nation. The town is located in the heart of the San Juan Basin, which is known for its petroleum and natural gas deposits. Aztec is about three hours away by car, at a distance of approximately from Albuquerque, the most populous city in New Mexico. In 2017, the town had a population of about 6,500 people, with 900 students enrolled at Aztec High School. According to the United States Department of Education, in 2013, Aztec's student body was measured at 26% Hispanic and almost 20% Native American.Perpetrator
William Edward Atchison was born on March 18, 1996. He lived in Belen, New Mexico, before moving to Aztec with his family, and attending Aztec High School. According to his father, Atchison was bullied in school; in one incident, he was allegedly attacked during a welding class and stabbed in the chest. A neighbor called the Aztec police on Atchison twice, once for firing his airsoft pellet gun at their dogs, and a second time for threatening to shoot her husband during an argument over cannabis that had been found near the property. Because of these disputes, the neighbor refused to allow her sons to play with Atchison. She described him as someone who spent "a lot of time inside and alone", while a coworker said he was bullied.Atchison was suspended from high school on March 9, 2012, for using the classroom whiteboard to write a chronology of the Columbine High School massacre. This complaint was not reported to the school's resource officer. Atchison had attended sessions with school counselors for many years and was seeing one regularly in Farmington until the counselor retired. He saw a new counselor two more times, but suddenly stopped before dropping out of school on August 20 of the same year. He never returned to school after the suspension. After leaving school, Atchison worked at a local Giant gas station near his home.
Online activity
Atchison was noted to have a substantial online presence, which The Daily Beast said resulted in him "making many enemies". His online activity included writing pro-Hitler and pro-Trump posts online and frequenting internet forums and white supremacist websites. He used various usernames, including "Future Mass Shooter" and names styled after several mass murderers. He was a sysop of Encyclopedia Dramatica, where he went by "AlGore", though he was sometimes criticized by its userbase. Other users would often ask Atchison "how his manifesto was going". His father later told investigators that he had noticed his son visiting "neo-Nazi" websites and believed they were a negative influence on him. He had few friends outside of the internet.In an online posting written on the website Think Atheist in 2014, he described his frustration with life in rural New Mexico and his bleak career prospects and asked for advice on how to fix his life, saying: "Look, I'm sorry if I'm rude and hateful or anything, but I don't know what to do. I've lived no life for nearly 19 years How can I become polite and make some friends out there in this world?" Though the post had several hundred views, no one responded. He was a white supremacist; he expressed an interest in mass shooters, Satan, and Hitler, and expressed antisemitic and misogynist sentiments. He also repeatedly posted about wanting to end his own life and called himself "mentally ill", saying he had "major depression, inability to feel joy, intense levels of sadistic desire and various addictions to substances", though other posts evidenced narcissistic thought.
In early 2016, Atchison began directly communicating with David Sonboly, who went on to commit a mass shooting in Munich in July of that year, killing nine and injuring 36 before he killed himself. Atchison and Sonboly had participated in a Steam chat group created by Atchison called the "Anti-Refugee Club". A member of the group claimed that the group "wasn't racist" but was "mostly satire", while political scientist described the group as a "virtual, international network of potential mass murderers". In the group, mass murderers like Anders Breivik were stylized as heroes, and group members shared fantasies of killing directed against "non-Aryans", people of color, migrants, Jews, and refugees. The group communicated about weapons and mass murder as well as multiplayer first-person shooter video games such as Counter-Strike. Another member of this group, a German 15-year-old, was introduced to Sonboly by Atchison. He was later arrested for plotting mass murder, and the investigation into him led to Atchison, but the Stuttgart State Criminal Police Office did not follow up on it.
The group was removed in September 2017. After the Munich shooting, Atchison wrote an epitaph to Sonboly on Encyclopedia Dramatica, calling him a "true Aryan" and "true German". He also claimed to have been friends with Carter Boyles, a 15-year-old interested in school shootings who killed himself by gunshot at his high school in 2016. After his death, Atchison wrote the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on his suicide. He commented under a video made by Boyles mourning him, and arguing that while "uicides are ignored, uicidal people who commit mass murder become celebrities."
FBI investigation
Atchison had no previous criminal record; however, he was investigated by the FBI in March 2016, due to an online post indicating his interest in purchasing weapons for a mass shooting. The post stated that he was "plotting mass shooting" and asked for "weapons that are good for killing a lot of people within a budget".This post was traced to the computer of Atchison's older brother after the post was flagged, and investigators visited Atchison at his home on March 24, 2016. He convinced FBI investigators that he was simply "trolling", and that he was "not the type to actually do any of this stuff". He told the agents he had previously been suicidal and that he was fascinated by school shooters and guns. When asked for assurance by the agents, he told them to put him on a watch list. The investigation was subsequently closed when it was determined that, other than an airsoft pellet gun, he did not own a firearm, and that he had not committed a crime. He later described the FBI visit on his YouTube channel, saying he had been investigated after someone reported his profile, but that the FBI did not think that he was a legitimate threat and that they "understood the satire".
Following a miscommunication with the FBI, Aztec police were instead provided information about Atchison's older brother, who they believed had made the online posts. A sketch in addition to the name and photo of his brother were posted inside the police station as part of a "use caution" bulletin. There was no follow up and this was not corrected. Police did not share information about the threat with the school district or the school resource officer.
Planning
In November 2017, Atchison traveled to Sportsman's Warehouse in Farmington, where, with his father, he legally purchased a 9mm Glock 19 Gen4 semi-automatic pistol that he would later use in the December attack on the school. After the gun was purchased, his father told him "not to point it at anyone" and, in jest, to "never do a school shooting". Two weeks before the attack on the school, Atchison and his brother took the handgun and a.22 caliber rifle out for shooting.Several weeks before the attack, Atchison visited Aztec High School to do surveillance. He was escorted around the school and given a tour by a teacher. His father later told police that his son played a video game that allowed him to simulate a practice run of the school shooting. The day before the shooting, two police officers spoke casually to him at the gas station where he worked, there to fill up their patrol cars. According to the officers nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
A timeline for the killings was found in Atchison's home, with the last entry being "8 Die." A thumb drive discovered on his person contained the same schedule, and a note. Composed at 6:51 a.m. on the day of the attack, it read in part: "If things go according to plan, today would be when I die. I go somewhere and gear up, then hold a class hostage and go apeshit, then blow my brains out" and "Work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. I just want out of this shit." The note also detailed his plan to wait until students got off the buses and went to class. Atchison began to walk to the school at 7:30 a.m.