Authorities stage at Price Middle school in Atlanta Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, after a child was shot. Credit: AP
ATLANTA (AP) — A student opened fire at
his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the
neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the
gun away, police said.
Multiple shots were fired in the
courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown about 1:50 p.m.
and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the
aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.
The wounded boy was taken “alert,
conscious and breathing” to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police
spokesman Carlos Campos. Grady Heath System Spokeswoman Denise Simpson
said the teen had been discharged from the hospital Thursday night.
Campos said charges against the shooter were pending.
Police swarmed the school of about 400
students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents
gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were
kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being
dismissed.
Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.
Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.
“The obvious question is how did this
get past a metal detector?” Davis asked about the gun. “That’s something
we do not know yet.”
The armed resource officer who took the
gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn’t release
details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children
and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have
resonated across the country.
Hours after the Atlanta shooting,
several school buses loaded with children pulled away from the school
and stopped in front of a church about a half-block away. Parents tried
boarding the buses. Police who initially tried to stop the parents,
relented and screamed, “Let them off!” about the students.
Busses
arrive at a church carrying children from Price Middle school in
Atlanta on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, after a child was shot at the
school. Credit: AP
Authorities stage at Price Middle school in Atlanta Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, after a child was shot. Credit: AP
Authorities
stage at Price Middle school in Atlanta Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, after a
child was shot. A 14-year-old boy was wounded outside the school
Thursday afternoon and a fellow student was in custody as a suspect,
authorities said. No other students were hurt. Credit: AP
James Bolton was at work when his
sister called saying a teen had been shot at his son’s school and was in
the crowd as parents began swarming the fleet of buses.
“Move, I see my son, I see mine!” he
said, running up to embrace James Bolton Jr. “As long as I got this one
back I’m OK,” he said, holding his son’s head against his chest as
parents nearby frantically searched for their children.
Bolton Jr. said he was in class when
the intercom sounded and a school official announced the building was
under immediate lockdown.
“They told us we had to be quiet,”
Bolton told The Associated Press. “They said something went on in the
courtyard.” Bolton said he was unaware that anyone had been shot until a
reporter asked him about it.
Shakita Walker, whose daughter is an
eighth-grader at the school, said she received a text from her that
said, “Ma somebody’s shooting and somebody got shot.” Walker, who works
at another school, said she jumped in her car and was thinking “just
hurry up and get there.”
Walker said her daughter called to
tell her that they were being kept in the gymnasium, but she said she
was anxious to see her to make sure she was OK.
The fear and anxiety was palpable in the crowd, as one person yelled, “Does anyone know what happened?”
Superintendent Davis sympathized with
concerned parents who complained that it took too long for students to
be released from the building. He said emergency procedures were
followed according to protocol and school district officials would meet
Friday to review their response. Calls to the school district were not
immediately returned.
Mayor Kasim Reed condemned gun
violence in a statement shortly after the shooting and said counselors
were at the school to meet with students, faculty and family members.
“Gun violence in and around our
schools is simply unconscionable and must end,” Reed said. “Too many
young people are being harmed, and too many families are suffering from
unimaginable and unnecessary grief.”
Outside the school, Laquanda Pittman
said she still hasn’t heard from her sixth-grade son. She said she heard
the news of the shooting on TV and immediately came to the school.
“All types of stuff went through my
head. I’m wondering whether it was my child who got shot, is my child
OK, did he see what happened?” Pittman said.
She said she just wants to see her son.
“As a parent, you just think you can send your child to school and you hope they come home OK,” she said.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/31/armed-guard-stops-school-shooter-after-he-opened-fire-at-atlanta-middle-school/
