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Shooting reaches into tribal leader's home

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Hours after the school shooting that devastated his reservation, Red Lake tribal chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain said the Indian tribe was in the midst of "the darkest days in the history of our people."

A week later, it grew darker for Jourdain, when his teenage son was arrested in the shootings that left 10 people dead.

Federal authorities declined to say what role Louis Jourdain may have played in the attack.

The Associated Press reported that authorities began investigating Louis Jourdain after determining that he and the gunman, who were schoolmates, had exchanged e-mails.

The arrest came as a surprise not only because of the prominence of the suspect's father, but because authorities had initially said the attacks appeared to be the work of single gunman - a 16-year-old loner who took his own life during the killing rampage.

The tribal chairman issued a statement Tuesday in which he called his son "a good boy with a good heart, who never harmed anyone in his entire life."

"I know my son, and he is incapable of committing such an act ... I strongly believe my son will be cleared of these charges."

Jourdain has been the public face of the Red Lake reservation since the shootings.

"Our community is devastated by this event," Jourdain said the day after the attack. "We have never seen anything like this in the history of our tribe, and without doubt these are the darkest days in the history of our people. We are in utter disbelief and shock."

[Last modified March 30, 2005, 01:04:14]