TAFT, Calif. (AP) — 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.
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 (http://bit.ly/ZxkQUf).
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.
Breaking News
One student shot at high school in Taft, Calif.
- Breaking News
-
- Palestine, Elkhart city and school board election results
-
Thomas on top in close Palestine mayor's race
The race for the City of Palestine Mayor came down to the wire Saturday with only 39 votes separating the mayoral candidates.
District 5 council member Therrell Thomas and local businessman Timothy Triplett were vying for the city’s top spot as mayor, with the unofficial votes coming in 471 to 432 in Thomas’ favor Saturday night. -
PPD Drug Enforcement Unit seizes drugs, arrests six in 2 separate incidents
The newly-formed Palestine Police Department Drug Enforcement Unit arrested a total of six people over the last two days in attempt to crack down on the drug problem in Palestine.
-
FBI issues photos of 2 suspects in Boston bombing
The FBI released photos and video Thursday of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing and asked for the public's help in identifying them, zeroing in on the two men on surveillance-camera footage less than three days after the deadly attack.
-
Palestine Regional Medical Center’s AMBUS responds to explosion in West
Palestine Regional Medical Center’s AMBUS unit, one of only 13 such units in the state of Texas, and a team of seven personnel were sent to West late Wednesday night to assist in the aftermath of the fertilizer plant explosion.
-
Former JP charged in Kaufman County DA slayings
A former justice of the peace has been charged with murder in the slayings of a North Texas district attorney and his assistant who prosecuted him for theft, officials announced Thursday.
-
Donation drives to help people of West ongoing
Palestine residents Nina and Havis Tatum and their 10-year-old daughter, Kaleena, watched the horror taking place in the central Texas town of West after a fertilizer plant exploded shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday, rocking the town and causing major damage to dozens of homes, businesses, an apartment complex and a nursing home.
“We sat up and watched it on TV until after midnight,” Nina Tatum said Thursday morning. -
West Explosion Update: Rescuers search ruins of Texas fertilizer plant
WEST— Rescue workers searched the smoldering ruins of a fertilizer plant Thursday for survivors of a monstrous explosion that leveled homes and businesses in every direction across the Texas prairie. As many as 15 people were feared dead and more than 160 others injured.
Daybreak revealed a breathtaking band of destruction extending outward from the West Fertilizer Co. in this small farming community about 20 miles north of Waco. The thunderous blast was so powerful that it shook the ground with the strength of a small earthquake and could be heard dozens of miles away.
- Unknown number hurt, killed in fatal Texas fertilizer plant blast
-
Texas fertilizer plant blast injures dozens
An explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco Wednesday night injured dozens of people and sent flames shooting high into the night sky, leaving the factory a smoldering ruin and causing major damage to surrounding buildings.
- More Breaking News Headlines
Probe Begins After Conn. Commuter Trains Crash
NTSB Begins Investigation Into Conn. Train Crash
Lotto Fever Sweeps the Country
Conn. Commuter Trains Collide; 60 Go to Hospital
Coffee Run Leads to Hatchet Hitchhiker Arrest
Fmr. IRS Head Insists No Politics in Targeting
CDC: Fecal Bacteria Common in Swimming Pools
$1 Million in Jewels Stolen at Cannes Film Fest
NM Mom Chases Down Child Abductor
Raw: Crash Sends Car Into Fla. Pool
Raw: Obama Sits Down With Elementary Kids
Raw: Bear Falls From Tampa Tree
Ousted IRS Chief: Errors Not Caused by Politics
Terror Suspect Due in Court in Idaho Friday
Raw: Driver Ejected From Truck, Over Bridge
Could Tobacco Be the Next Biofuel?
Wash. State Releases Draft Rules for Legal Pot
Dying Man's Blinks Lead to Murder Conviction
Officials: Texas Tornado Likely Had 200 Mph Wind
Brothers Arrested in NOLA Parade Shooting
