Bush Offers Praise, Aid for Red Lake

President Bush offered an Easter tribute Saturday to a security guard who sacrificed his life to save others during last week’s school shooting in Red Lake, Minn., and promised federal assistance to help the shaken community recover.

Bush, in his weekly radio address to the nation, cited the heroism of Derrick Brun along with the valor of U.S. troops overseas as examples of the biblical maxim: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Brun, a security guard at Red Lake High School, confronted 16-year-old Jeff Weise after he entered the school on Monday to carry out a shooting spree on the Minnesota Indian reservation. Ten people were killed, including Brun and Weise, who ended the rampage by shooting himself.

“Although he was unarmed, Derrick ignored the pleas of a colleague to run for his life,” Bush said in the radio address, taped at the family ranch near Crawford, Texas, where the president was spending the holiday weekend with his family.

“By engaging the assailant, he bought vital time for a fellow security guard to rush a group of students to safety,” Bush said. “Derrick’s bravery cost him his life, and all Americans honor him.”

Bush said he had conveyed his concern and pledged continued federal aid in a Friday phone call to Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr. of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa. “We are doing everything we can to meet the needs of the community at this tragic time,” the president said.

Bush said the FBI and Justice Department were working to coordinate federal relief to the Red Lake community through the Federal Crime Victim Assistance Fund. He said federal authorities were working with state, local and tribal officials to provide counseling, help with funeral arrangements and other assistance.

Bush’s remarks were his first public response to the shooting. Some Native American leaders criticized him for not discussing the tragedy for five days, contrasting the delay to his rapid intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a right-to-die court battle in Florida.

“We don’t want to hear his little radio show a week late,” said Clyde Bellecourt, national director of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis. “He should have been the first person to call on the citizens of the United States to give back a little bit of what has been taken from the Indian people.”

Bush said the Red Lake tragedy underscored the need to promote family cohesiveness. Weise’s childhood was disrupted by the suicide of his father and a car accident that disabled his mother.

“Children benefit from a sense of community, and the support and involvement of caring adults,” Bush said. “To keep our children safe and protected, we must continue to foster a culture that affirms life and provides love, and helps our young people build character.”

The president said Brun’s bravery in Red Lake and the sacrifices of U.S. service members in other countries were in keeping with the Easter tradition.

“Easter is the victory of light over darkness,” he said. “In this season of renewal, we remember that hope leads us closer to truth, and that in the end, even death, itself, will be defeated.”