Ely Ray Serna, 17, was taken into custody Friday after the shooting, which left Cole in critical condition and caused minor injuries to another victim. Prosecutors said Serna will face 13 charges that include attempted murder, felonious assault, improperly discharging a firearm at or into a habitation or school safety zone, inducing panic and illegal conveyance or possession of a deadly weapon or dangerous ordnance in a school safety zone.
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Serna is being held in a juvenile detention center. He is expected to face an initial hearing in Champaign County Juvenile Court Monday. The court is expected to ensure Serna has an attorney, and determine whether he will remain in detention while the case is pending, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Cole is being treated at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. Family members said in a Facebook post Saturday that he suffered several serious injuries but could be taken out of intensive care as early as Saturday evening. Family members described several injuries in the Fabebook post, including lung damage from shotgun pellets, multiple bone breaks and fractures and teeth that were damaged when he fell to the floor.
A second, unnamed student suffered non-life-threatening injuries after being hit with part of the shot that was discharged from the firearm, prosecutors said. Deputies seized a Mossberg Model 500 12 gauge shotgun at the school that is alleged to have been used by Serna. Prosecutors said the investigation is ongoing and being led by the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office and agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
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In the Facebook post, family members credited Cole with trying to talk his assailant down despite lying on the floor suffering from gunshot wounds. Prosecutors did not provide further details of how the shooting occurred, but several students in the school told a similar story Saturday.
“I won’t go into all the details but as he was laying on the floor bleeding from two shotgun wounds, he was talking to the shooter asking/begging him to please not cause further injury to anyone at the school or to himself,” Ryan Cole said in a Facebook post.
On Friday, Champaign County Sheriff Matt Melvin also credited the district’s staff with preventing further harm. He said they had pinned Serna to the ground by the time deputies arrived, and ensured students were able to safely evacuate the school. Melvin did not return a call seeking comment Saturday.
Melvin said Friday that Cole was a random target, and that the situation could easily have been worse if the staff had failed to act.
West Liberty community members said they remained stunned a day after the shooting. Numerous community members downtown Saturday said it’s been decades since the last serious, violent crime they can remember in the small, rural village of fewer than 2,000 residents. When students fled the campus shortly after the shooting started, many of them fled across frigid, muddy cornfields into the homes of neighbors who had volunteered to open their doors to the students.
“It’s almost like every door is open to everyone,” said Mike Dalton, who has a kindergarten student at the K-12 campus.
Dalton’s wife grew up in West Liberty, and they moved there because she felt it would be the best place to raise their child. He still believes that’s the case despite Friday’s tragedy.
West Liberty-Salem High School students said it felt surreal to walk back onto the campus Saturday as they struggled to understand what took place.
Many students returned to the campus early Saturday morning to collect backpacks, car keys and other items left behind as students smashed through windows or fled through the hallways when they realized the emergency was real. It is not yet clear when classes will resume. A sign posted on the school’s entrances Saturday simply said the school will be closed until further notice. Kraig Hissong, the district’s superintendent, could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Stepping onto the campus was eerie, said Jenna Magnuson, a senior at the school.
“I didn’t even feel like going back to the school last night,” Magnuson said. “I couldn’t deal with it. It’s going to be with us for a while. Going into the parking lot even changed your mood”
Especially in a small district like West Liberty, students often grow up together and never imagined a classmate would try to harm other students, said senior Sierra McCall. She and other students eating breakfast at the Gathering Place Restaurant downtown said Serna’s not a bad person and they can’t understand what happened. He was described as a member of the school’s wrestling team.
“Never in a million years did any of us think anyone at West Liberty would have to go through something like this,” McCall said. “It hit us really hard.”
Several community members said local churches, including Quest Community Church, 110 South St., were planning to hold counseling session for community members Saturday. Local businesses also provided coffee to families Friday as they waited in a cold, steady drizzle at Lions Club Ballpark, where school buses dropped off students in groups after the scene was cleared.
Residents said West Liberty’s tight-knit community will make it easier to recover from the tragedy.
“All of that is a reflection of the kind of community we have here,” said Rick Zerkle, who served as mayor of the village in the 1980s and mid 1990s. “Even if we don’t know the kids, we care about them, even the kid who perpetrated the shooting.”
Residents hosted a vigil Friday evening as they tried to process that day’s events.
Parent Bryan Floyd was at work at Honda when he got a call from his wife, who was crying so hard he couldn’t understand her at first when she said there was a school shooting.
“Three of our kids are currently going to West Liberty-Salem High School,” Floyd said. “I didn’t think twice, I informed by bosses I had to leave.”
On the way to school he learned his three children — a senior, sophomore and middle school student — were safe and accounted for, but he initially feared the worst. Floyd said he came to Friday’s vigil to support the community and Cole, who played soccer with his son and is known by his children.
“What had happened to the victim could have very well been one of my kids,” Floyd said.
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