Los Angeles school shooting: female student booked, injuries reported

It seems that there has been an outburst of shootings; particularly in international schools. And that too by students.

But what is shocking is how they were able to gain access to a gun?

A 12-year-old girl opened fire in a Los Angeles middle-school classroom on Thursday, injuring five people including a 15 year-old-boy who was shot in the head before she was taken into custody, police said. 

The shooting at Sal Castro Middle School near the city’s downtown district triggered a lockdown of the facility and a neighboring high school. Parents swarmed the area seeking to be re-united with their children.

“As a parent, this is everyone’s worst-case nightmare,” Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief Robert Arcos said at a news conference.

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In Thursday’s incident, two students were hit directly by gunfire and three other victims were hit by shrapnel, police said.

The 15-year-old boy was hit by gunfire in the left temple and was rushed to a hospital, where he was alert and talking when he arrived, said Dr. Carl Chudnofsky, head of emergency medicine at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

He had no damage to “vital structures,” doctors said at a news conference, adding that they were cautiously optimistic he would survive.

A 15-year old girl was hit in the wrist and was in stable condition, Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Wendy Reyes said. Both were students at the school, officials said, but it was not immediately clear if the 12-year-old girl who was taken into custody was also a student there.

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A motive for the shooting was not immediately clear, Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Tony Im said in a telephone call.

The three people with slight injuries from shrapnel ranged in age from 11 to 30 years old, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott said.

Authorities said they were trying to determine how the gun was brought on campus, and how she had access to one.

NOT THE FIRST INCIDENT

The shooting, which took place in an elective class with children of different ages, was the latest outbreak of gun violence at a US school.

The girl was not the youngest ever suspect arrested in a school shooting. In 2000, a 6-year-old boy shot and killed a classmate at a campus in Michigan, according to media reports at the time.

Between 2000 and 2013, nearly 17% of so-called 160 active shooter incidents in the United States were in elementary, middle or high schools, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation report.

An active shooter is defined as a person trying shoot to death people in a confined area.