An Oregon teenager shocked a crowd at a coffee shop last week when he stabbed himself to death on stage after singing at an open mic night.
Kipp Rusty Walker, 19, took the stage at Strictly Organic Coffee in the town of Bend, Or. on Thursday to perform a song he called “Sorry for the Mess.”
When he finished playing, he pulled out a knife with a double-edged 6 inch blade and stabbed himself multiple times in the chest in front of a confused crowd of roughly 15 people.
“It was really unclear at first what was even happening. Because, you know, it is an open mic and it’s a performance,” the shop’s co-owner Rhonda Ealy told local television station KTVZ. “People at first thought it was some sort of theatre.”
Once the crowd saw blood and figured out what was happening, Walker was rushed to St. Charles Medical Center where he died of his wounds.
A friend of his, who did not want to be identified, told Oregon’s NewsChannel 21 Walker’s death did not come as much of a surprise because the teenager had contemplated suicide before and even planned to kill himself in a public place.
“I’ve been preparing for it for a while, I’m sad about it, but I think I’m in shock, it’s like a whirlwind of emotions,” the friend said. “It was almost like he wanted to prove a point, like there’s no point in being scared of death because it’s going to happen to us anyway.”
Walker first tried to take his own life on Mar. 20th, the friend said, who helped to have him hospitalized at the psychiatric unit of St. Charles Medical Center-Bend.
He said he warned Walker that killing himself would have lasting implications.
“I actually told him, I was like, ‘Dude, this is going to mess a lot of people up,” the friend told the TV station.
The traumatic incident is the first of its kind in the area, police Sgt. Chris Carney told Oregon radio station KBND.
“You know, 19 years with the Police Department, I can’t think of any event similar to this where somebody’s done something in such a public forum,” he said. “We still don’t know the reason why he chose to do this, why he chose this location or anything and we probably never will.”
Counseling has been made available to witnesses or anyone affected by Walker’s death.
“Most people never have to see anything like that in their entire lives, and never have before, so it is a life-changing experience,” Ealy told KTVZ.
Walker would have turned 20 this week.
