Tucson teacher who shot herself gets year in prison

Associated Press
April 13, 2001 07:48:00

TUCSON – A teacher who shot herself but blamed a mysterious
assailant for a time was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison.

Kathy A. Morris shot herself in a shoulder April 10, 2000, while
alone in a classroom at La Cima Middle School.

Prosecutors said Morris planned the shooting and made up a story
about an unknown gunman as part of a scheme to qualify for
medical retirement.

Defense attorneys said her actions were prodded by mental
illness, including severe depression.

Morris, 42, also linked a student to a series of threatening
letters she actually had devised herself.

Judge Charles Sabalos of Pima County Superior Court credited her
with an admirable record during her 12-year teaching career but
said she must atone for defaming her profession and the student.

Though she contends she still doesn’t understand just what
happened, the judge told her that “I think you knew … that you
would cause your student and his family to suffer from extreme
anxiety and had the potential to inflame racial and or
gang-related tensions in the school district and the community.”

Morris had pleaded guilty to attempted fraudulent scheme and
artifice, disorderly conduct, aggravated criminal damage,
possession of a deadly weapon at a school and two counts of false
reporting to a law enforcement agency.

Her prison term is to be followed by five years’ probation and
200 hours of community service.

In a civil lawsuit filed last week, the student and his parents
accused Morris and her former employer, Amphitheater Public
Schools, of defamation, false arrest and intentional and
negligent infliction of emotional distress.

In federal court, U.S. District Judge Frank Zapata has sentenced
Morris to five years of probation and two months of community
service for possession of a stolen firearm – a gun belonging to
her late grandfather used without permission.