Shooting reported at high school in California: dispatcher

Shooting reported at high school in California: dispatcher


Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:23pm EST


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gunfire erupted on Thursday at a California high school in inland Kern County, a sheriff's department dispatcher said, and media reports indicated two people had been shot and the assailant arrested.

The dispatcher confirmed the shooting at Taft Union High School but gave no other details.

A California ABC affiliate reported that sheriff's deputies were going room-by-room to secure the school and that two people had been shot, but had no immediate word on their condition. It said the shooter had been apprehended by police.

The station, 23ABC News, reported that some people had called the station from inside the school, where they were hiding in closets.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/10/us-usa-shooting-california-idUSBRE90910H20130110

"the suspect is a student, and a shotgun was used in the attack."

1 injured in California school shooting - Keyser, WV - Mineral Daily News-Tribune - Keyser, WV

January 10, 2013, 1:14 PM

Student shot at Calif. high school by classmate; suspect talked into surrendering by staff

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Updated at 4:14 p.m. ET

TAFT, Calif. A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school on Thursday and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said.

The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a press conference. The sheriff said the teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head but declined treatment.

When the shots were fired, the teacher began trying to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and also engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said. A campus supervisor responding to a call of shots fired also began talking to him.

"They talked him into putting the shotgun down," Youngblood said.

The sheriff said that at one point the shooter told the teacher, "I don't want to shoot you" and named the person he wanted to shoot.

The shooter may have had up to 20 shotgun rounds in his pockets, he said.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in. Taft police officers arrived within 60 seconds of first reports.

The shooting occurred about 9 a.m. at Taft Union High School in a community of fewer than 10,000 people amid oil and natural gas production fields about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The shooting happened on the second floor of the school's science building around 9 a.m., according to CBS affiliate KBAK in Bakersfield.

As word spread, Dayna Hopper rushed to the school to pick up her son Joseph Sorensen, 16, and daughter, Cheryle Pryor, 15, who had called from Cheryle's cellphone.

"I panicked. I wanted to puke and just get here," Dayna Hopper told The Bakersfield Californian.

KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.

The bell had just rung at a nearby school when teachers began shouting for students to get inside buildings, and the principal used an intercom to tell students to stay inside, Felicity Reich, 13, a student at Lincoln Junior High School, told the newspaper.

Shaken, she held the hand of her mother, Ellie Reich, as she spoke.
The student who was shot at the high school was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield, said Ray Pruitt, spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff's Department.

About 900 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes 9th through 12th grades.

Masses of parents headed to the school football field to find their children, and officials at other schools took action to protect their students as well, the newspaper said.

The Taft shooting came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the thoughts and prayers of legislators were with the people at the Taft school.

"It really is just another very sad moment as we deal with the ongoing reality of gun violence that has captured so much of our attention this last year," Perez said.

http://news.google.com/news/url?sr=1&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_1_1_a&sa=t&usg=AFQjCNEDP6t AmPcCbb-wxpk6O_pG15nkJQ&cid=52778057613719&url=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2F8301-201_162-57563309%2Fstudent-shot-at-calif-high-school-by-classmate-suspect-talked-into-surrendering-by-staff%2F&ei=DDjvULjsN8eMiALG1wE&sig2=fsE3LmxZ6EGnv JkMld6G3w&rt=HOMEPAGE&vm=STANDARD&bvm=section&twa= f&did=5722134285315920718&ssid=h

Sounds as though someone was bullied and snapped. Just a thought.

Here we go. Now, what responsibility does the school have for allowing this kid to be bullied, they are supposed to be in control. How much responsibility is there on the media that uses these incidents as a political tool? Copycat crimes are a well known phenomena, but the media and the leftist politicians are riding this for all they can get, they claim to "care" while the use tragedy for political gain and ratings.

California school shooter targeted bullies, sheriff says

Published January 11, 2013

TAFT, Calif. – The 16-year-old boy had allegedly wounded the teenager he claimed had bullied him, fired two more rounds at students fleeing their first-period science class, then faced teacher Ryan Heber.

"I don't want to shoot you," he told the popular teacher, who was trying to coax the teen into giving up the shotgun he still held.

Recounting the suspect's words, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said the confrontation was enough of a distraction to give 28 students time to escape their classroom Thursday at a California high school.

The violence came just minutes after administrators had announced new lockdown safety procedures prompted by the Newtown, Conn., school slayings.
"Just 10 minutes before it happened our teachers were giving us protocol because of what happened in Connecticut," said student Oscar Nuno, who was across campus from the science building at Taft Union High School when an announcer on the PA system said the school was under lock down "and it was not a drill."

The teen victim, who classmates said played football last year for the Taft Wildcats, was in critical but stable condition at a Kern County hospital Thursday night. He was expected to undergo surgery on Friday.

The suspect surrendered his shotgun to Heber and campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields. His pockets were stuffed with more ammunition, said Youngblood.

"This teacher and this counselor stood there face-to-face not knowing if he was going to shoot them," Youngblood said. "They probably expected the worst and hoped for the best, but they gave the students a chance to escape."

Heber's forehead had been grazed by a stray pellet, but Youngblood said the teacher who had graduated from the Taft school two decades ago was unaware he had been hit.

"He's the nicest teacher I know," Nuno said. "He loves his students and he always wants to help."

The shooting shocked residents of this remote town of 9,400 that sits amid tumbleweeds and oil fields about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

"We know each other here," said former mayor Dave Noerr. "We drive pickups and work hard and hunt and fish. This is a grassroots town. This is the last place you'd think something like this would happen."

The 16-year-old's name is on the lips of everyone in town, but authorities aren't releasing it because he's a juvenile. He had felt bullied by the victim for more than a year, said Youngblood, who added that the claim was still being investigated.

Trish Montes described her neighbor as "a short guy" and "small" who was teased about his stature by many.

Montes said her son had worked at the school and tutored the boy last year.

"All I ever heard about him was good things from my son," Montes said. "He wasn't Mr. Popularity, but he was a smart kid. It's a shame. My kid said he was like a genius."

On Wednesday night the teen went home and plotted revenge, Youngblood said.

He found a gun that authorities believe belonged to the suspect's older brother, and went to bed that night plotting revenge against two students.

"He planned the event," Youngblood said. "Certainly he believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not we don't know yet."

The suspect arrived after 9 a.m., and video surveillance cameras captured him looking nervous as he entered through a side door, Youngblood said. He made his way to the second floor of the school's science building, where Heber's class with 28 students inside was under way.

The suspect walked in a door close to the front of the classroom and shot his classmate. When the shots were fired, Heber tried to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students, and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."
The teacher's father, David Heber, told the Bakersfield Californian that he had heard rumors of a school shooting but wasn't initially worried that his son's classroom would have been involved.

"His students like him a whole bunch," said Heber, 70. "He's not the kind of teacher a student would try to hurt. He's definitely someone who could talk a kid down in an emergency."

Youngblood said that the suspect would be charged with attempted murder. The District Attorney will decide whether he's charged as an adult, Youngblood said.
The Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl suffered minor injuries during the scramble to flee.

Wilhelmina Reum, whose daughter Alexis Singleton is a fourth-grader at a nearby elementary school, got word of the attack while she was about 35 miles away in Bakersfield and immediately sped back to Taft.

"I just kept thinking this can't be happening in my little town," she told The Associated Press.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus, but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in.

The school will be closed Friday as investigators continue to search the building. Authorities are "searching every backpack, every book," Youngblood said, to make sure the suspect acted alone.

The attack there came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

Read more: California school shooter targeted bullies, sheriff says | Fox News