A school shooting in St. Louis, Missouri, resulted in three deaths, including the shooter, and seven injured.
The shooter entered the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School after 9:00 am local time (6:30pm IST) on Monday.
Although the school doors were locked, it is still unclear how the shooter entered the institution.
According to the eyewitness’s statements, many people were saved as the shooter’s gun jammed “mid-attack” while he was inside the building.
The St. Louis Public School said that the police’s timely intervention was crucial in stopping the gunman.
The suspect has been identified by the police as a former student aged 19, who died from succumbing to his injuries following a shootout with the police.
His motive for the attack is unclear.
The school has about 400 students.
On School shooting What local people says
According to local media, a teenage girl died inside the school, and a woman was pronounced dead at the hospital. Seven people were injured in the incident, three girls and four boys, all of which were deemed non-life threatening.
The students were running outside the school as the police arrived on the scene, and that the shooter had a “long gun,” said Commissioner Micheal Sack, the city’s police chief.
He further commented that the security personnel onsite were decisive as they alerted the rest of the staff and the police force.
The gunman had carried hundreds of bullets sorted out into a dozen high capacity magazines, and Commissioner Sack said that things could have gotten “much worse” and that the investigation has already begun with the FBI providing additional aid.
Committing to the incident, he says that, “this is a heart-breaking day for all of us.”
According to the local TV channel, KMOV, the student, Raven Terry, who was the friend of the attacker, said that the attacker confronted her by asking her if she was ready to die.
She said that all those students who escaped ran for their lives, and many of the students were in tears while they ran.
Tanya Gholston, 16, said that the shooter entered the class room and aimed the gun at her to shoot and that she wanted to run but couldn’t whilst she made eye contact with the gunman, and she had only escaped because his gun was jammed.
Many of the witnesses said that the shooter said that he was tired of this school. The police said that the gunman was a former student of the school who graduated last year and had no criminal background.
Jean Kuczka, 61, a grandmother of seven who was the health teacher at the school and had been teaching there since 2008, was one of his victims.
Her daughter, Abigail, said that her mother loved her students and died protecting them.
The people who are injured are said to be suffering from cardiac arrest, gunshot wounds, and shrapnel injuries, which are said to be non-life threatening.
Responding to this incident, St. Louis Mayor, Tishaura Jones, said that the children should not have gone through this.
According to the data from Education Weekly, there have been thirty-five cases of school shootings in the country this year alone with casualties.
