One victim in Seattle work shooting had attended BSU

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Nov. 7, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

A former Granite Falls, Minn., man who was killed in a workplace shooting in Seattle on Wednesday attended Bemidji State University for two years, according to university records officials.

Russel James Brisendine, 43, died Wednesday when a man in camouflage clothing and sunglasses calmly walked in and shot four employees at a boat repair company, killing two of them.

Brisendine, who was an engineer at the boat company, attended BSU from March 1979 until March 1981, but he never graduated from there. He supposedly studied industrial technology, according to his brother.

Current industrial technology department chairman Wally Peck, who arrived at the school a couple of years after Brisendine left school, said he didn't recognize his name.

Jay Johnson, a longtime BSU industrial technology instructor who is now retired, said he also didn't recognize the name even though he was teaching at the time.

He said he might not recognize the name because students often switch majors when in college.

Brisendine was born in San Diego, but moved to Granite Falls when he was in elementary school. He graduated from high school in 1974, joined the U.S. Navy and became an electrician. Four years later he attended BSU. He then moved to Alaska and later the Seattle area.

He is survived by his wife, Naomi; their four sons; his parents; a brother; and a sister.