Purdue Shooting Anomalies

We're being hit with these school shootings "fast and furious" nowadays, making it difficult to separate them. Today was Purdue University's turn. We're told that around noon today a 23-year old teaching assistant in the electrical engineering department, Cody Cousins of Centerville, Ohio, walked into Room EE067 in the basement of the Electrical Engineering Building, a lab classroom that holds approximately 25 students, and shot at point blank range another teaching assistant, 21-year old Andrew Boldt of West Bend, Wisconsin. Purdue Police Chief John Cox told reporters that Cousins fired about 4 or 5 shots in what he described as a targeted, intentional shooting. A student in the adjacent classroom, Nick Wieland, told the Journal & Courier that he heard about two shots ring out before hearing a man scream.

Cox told reporters that nearly a dozen police officers were on the scene within minutes, and Cousins walked out of the building unarmed and surrendered to police without resisting. The Journal & Courier has a video on its website showing Cousins' peaceful arrest out front of the building after he laid face down before being placed in handcuffs. According to West Lafayette police, Cousins has been preliminarily charged with murder and is being held at the Tippecanoe County Jail. The following text message alert went out to all Purdue students on campus within minutes of the shooting.

Purdue spokesperson Liz Evans spoke to CNN's Wolf Blitzer nearly 90 minutes after the shooting had occurred but could still not identify whether anyone had been injured or killed in the shooting, only that one person had been taken into custody. At 1:50 p.m., the Purdue Exponent reported that  Prof. David Meyer, the professor of the classroom where the shooting occurred, sent out the following e-mail message: "IMPORTANT: Any student that witnessed the incident today (Tuesday, January 21) in room EE 067 please contact the Purdue police department as soon as possible." News reports haven't identified what kind of gun Cousins allegedly used in the shooting. West Lafayette police told reporters that a search warrant had been issued this afternoon following the shooting for Cousins' residence, but he could not confirm whether any weapons had been recovered from his residence. Cousins made no statement to police at the time of his arrest.

Acquaintances of  Cousins tells WTHR-TV that they didn't view him as being a violent person, let alone capable of committing murder. "That's the thing. He never showed us a gun, talked about a gun, was violent. He was always...there was no indication that he would ever, like, snap or do anything physical," said neighbor Tom Novak. "I've seen him intoxicated, too, and he was never violent, you know."He had one prior arrest during his years at Purdue for public intoxication. Cousins' landlord described him as clean-cut guy who was well-organized.

Alleged Shooter Cody Cousins

Shooting victim Andrew Boldt

Classes at Purdue were cancelled this afternoon and have been suspended for Wednesday as well. Purdue President Mitch Daniels was outside the country on a week-long trip to Columbia when he learned of the shooting. University officials say that he is cutting short his trip and expects to return to the campus tomorrow afternoon.


The conspiratorial website, NoDisInfo.com, quickly dismissed the Purdue shooting, like other recent school shootings, as nothing more than a hoax, although it presents no evidence to back up the claim.