The family of a teacher killed in a 2022 St. Louis school shooting three years ago has sued a major health care provider, saying it did not tell the district the attacker had expressed thoughts of violence against his former school.
Jean Kuczka’s husband and children filed the wrongful death case against BJC Health Systems, its main hospital and several health care providers on Friday. It was the third anniversary of the shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Both are magnet high schools in St. Louis Public Schools.
“This was a preventable tragedy,” said Todd Nissenholtz, a partner at Cofman Townsley and the family’s attorney. “Instead, what we have is Jean Kuczka, a hero who put herself between the gunman and her children to let them get out of the classroom, and a young student both killed on that day.”
Kuczka was the health and physical education teacher at CVPA and coached the CSMB cross-country team. The other person killed, 15-year-old Alexzandria Bell, was a sophomore at CVPA. Seven people were injured in the rampage.
The shooter, 19-year-old Orlando Harris, was killed in a gunbattle with police. He graduated from CVPA in 2021 and had been struggling with his mental health for years.
The suit alleges that in the two months before the shooting, he told multiple mental health providers employed by BJC that he planned to “shoot up my old high school.” BJC, the suit said, failed to make the school aware of the threats.
One psychiatrist, Dr. Hetal Patel, told police investigating the shooting that she had spoken to Harris about two months before the attack, while he was receiving treatment for a suicide attempt. He mentioned during that session he had told another mental health provider that he had had thoughts of shooting up the school. But the shooter also said that the thoughts were brief and that he did not actually want to commit violence.
While Patel worked to teach the shooter to regulate his thoughts, she does not appear to have mentioned the comment to law enforcement or the school.
Mental health care providers are only allowed to break the confidentiality of their patients if there is a likelihood of serious harm. At the time, the shooter did not own a gun and had not put together any specific plans.
But according to the lawsuit, documents found in the shooter’s car show the thoughts were not fleeting. He wrote, “I literally told two psychiatrist[s] that I was planning on shooting up my old high school.” And on Oct. 15, 2022, just nine days before the shooting, his mother called BJC employees to tell them the shooter had purchased an AR-15 rifle and ammunition.
At that point, Nissenholtz said, the threat to the school was “serious and imminent” and had risen to the point at which providers could break confidentiality.
“We all talk about the greater the danger, the greater the responsibility,” he said. “There is no greater danger than a threat to a school of hundreds of children and teachers, of a mass shooting."
The family is seeking at least $100 million in damages. BJC said in a statement that it would “vigorously contest” the allegations.
