Troubled prison start for Ohio school gunman

T.J. Lane is serving life sentence for killing 3 students

11/5/2013

TOLEDO, Ohio — The teen serving life sentences for killing three students in a school shooting rampage in northeast Ohio has been in trouble four times since entering prison last March.

T.J. Lane, who pleaded guilty in the February 2012 shooting at Chardon High School, was given 10 days in segregation this summer for giving himself a tattoo, said Ricky Seyfang, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Prison records did not say how Lane got the tattoo.

Lane, 19, later was disciplined on three occasions for refusing cellblock work or institutional assignments, Seyfang said Tuesday.

Lane has been in the state prison system since his March sentencing where he wore a T-shirt with “killer” scrawled across it and cursed and gestured obscenely to relatives of victims gathered in the hushed courtroom.

Defiant during the sentencing, Lane smiled and smirked throughout, including while four relatives of victims spoke.

He pleaded guilty to the shooting rampage inside a school cafeteria at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but said he didn’t know why he did it.

Prosecutors said Lane fired 10 shots at a group of students, killing three boys and wounding three other students. He was at the school waiting for a bus to an alternative school he attended for students who haven’t done well in traditional settings.

Lane has appealed his sentence and is being held on protective custody at the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima.

He twice lost 10 days of recreation time for refusing work assignments, Seyfang said. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer first reported Lane’s discipline issues.