The 2017 Aztec High School shooting was a school shooting and murder-suicide perpetrated by 21-year-old former student William Atchison on December 7, 2017, in Aztec, New Mexico, United States. Atchison entered the school in the morning disguised as a current student and hid in the school restroom. He was discovered before he could launch a major attack, but fatally shot two students before killing himself. Investigators believe that the quick actions of the teachers in barricading doors to the classrooms helped prevent mass casualties.
Background
Aztec, New Mexico
Aztec is a small town in San Juan County, in northwest New Mexico, on the outer edge of the Four Corners region of the state, 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 Department of Education, in 2013, Aztec's student body was measured at 26% Hispanic and almost 20% Native American.
William Edward Atchison
William Edward Atchison was born on March 18, 1996, the younger of two sons to Wayne and Marjorie (nee Peiffer) Atchison. He lived in Belen, New Mexico, before moving to Aztec with his family. William was known by the nickname "Bill" and attended Aztec High School nearby. According to his father and a former co-worker, Atchison was bullied in school. In one incident, he was allegedly attacked during a welding class and stabbed in the chest. Atchison 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.
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 over an argument. Because of these disputes, the neighbor refused to allow her sons to play with Atchison.
Atchison was suspended from high school on March 9, 2012, for using the classroom whiteboard to "memorialize" the Columbine High School massacre. He never returned to school after the suspension, and dropped out on August 20 of that same year. After leaving school, Atchison worked at a local Giant gas station near his home. In online postings written in 2014, he described his frustration with life in rural New Mexico and his bleak career prospects. Atchison called his father a "fat lazy idiot who watches Fox News all day" and his mother "a psycho hillbilly drunk from Florida who's really mentally ill."
Online activity
Atchison's online activity included writing pro-Hitler and pro-Trump posts on internet forums such as 4chan and Kiwi Farms, as well as white nationalist websites like The Daily Stormer. He used various usernames, such as "Future Mass Shooter", "Adam Lanza", "FuckYou" on Kiwi Farms and "AlGore" on Encyclopedia Dramatica, where he was an administrator. He often joked about school shootings, such as the Columbine High School massacre. He also posted on "The Columbine High School Massacre Discussion Forum", under the usernames, "FIBAgent", and "Seung Hui-cho". Atchinson was also interested in Jeff Weise, the perpetrator of the 2005 Red Lake shootings.
In early 2016, Atchison began directly communicating with 18-year-old David Sonboly, who several months later would become the Munich mass shooter in July of that year, killing nine and injuring 36, culminating in his own suicide at the end. Police later concluded that Sonboly was partly driven by "radical right-wing" motives.
Together, Atchison and Sonboly participated in a Steam chat group called the "Anti-Refugee Club". The group was initially created on January 10, 2016, with Atchison as co-founder. In the chat group, gunmen and far-right domestic terrorists 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. Political scientist Florian Hartleb described the group as a "virtual, international network of potential mass murderers".
After the Munich shooting in July 2016, Atchison wrote an epitaph to Sonboly on Encyclopedia Dramatica, calling him a "true Aryan" and "true German".