A student opened fire Tuesday in his high school in Kentucky, killing two teenagers and injuring 17 before being arrested, a new school shootout plaguing the United States.
The shooter was arrested in a non-violent manner by a sheriff’s agent and placed in police custody.
This is a high school student, 15 years old. “He will be charged with murder and attempted murder,” said Matt Bevin, the governor of the state west of the Appalachians.
Tragic shooting at Marshall County HS…Shooter is in custody, one confirmed fatality, multiple others wounded…Much yet unknown…Please do not speculate or spread hearsay…Let’s let the first responders do their job and be grateful that they are there to do it for us…
— Governor Matt Bevin (@GovMattBevin) January 23, 2018
A 15 year old high school girl died on the spot. A high school student, also aged 15, was fatally shot and died in hospital, the governor said. He specified that all the victims were a priori schooled in the establishment.
Twelve of them were wounded by gunshot, five of whom are in hospital in “serious condition,” police said. Five others were injured in the panic caused by the attack.
The gunfire broke out early in high school in Marshall County, in the small town of Benton. A place where, according to Mr. Bevin, such an “immense tragedy” was “inconceivable”.
“The facts began at 07:57, when a 15-year-old student entered high school carrying a handgun and started firing. The first call to (emergency number) 911 was recorded at 07:59. At 8:06, the first intervention team arrived at the school, “said Rick Sanders, chief of police in Kentucky.
Local media reported scenes of panic as students rushed out of high school while crying parents tried to hear from their children.
“They destroyed the gates and fences to get out,” Shea Thompson, whose children are attending school, told NBC.
Psychologists have started trying to comfort the residents of this rural area, the town of Benton with less than 5,000 inhabitants.
“It will be a long time before this wound is closed,” said Governor Bevin.
Teen hurt by bullet
On Monday, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the canteen of her high school in Texas. The United States records an average school shootings per week, according to associations.
“Our nation’s schools should be the safest places for our people. Why are we allowing this terror to continue? “Asked Gabby Giffords, a woman who was shot in Arizona, who left her disabled.
The drama at Marshall County High School comes a little over a month after the commemoration in the United States of the Sandy Hook Massacre, a Connecticut elementary school that killed five children aged six and seven five years ago.
The United States had previously been traumatized by previous school shootings, such as Columbine in 1999 or Virginia Tech in 2007.
Since the killing of Sandy Hook, warning procedures and training exercises have multiplied in US schools.
The aim of these trainings is to teach schoolchildren how to deal with a “shooter in action”, a frequent occurrence given the spread of firearms in the country.
The Kentucky police have reported that she recently provided such training at Marshall County High School.
“The students and the teaching team did everything they were trained to do,” said Sanders.