High School shooting in St. Louis, Missouri has left two killed and seven injured.
Gatekeepers News reports that the attack at the Central Visual & Performing Arts High School saw a 15year-old student identified as Alexandria Bell and Jean Kuczka, 61year-old physical education teacher dead.
The gunman, a 19-year-old former student,who was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, ended up dead by a gunshot from the Police.
The seven injured – three girls and four boys – escaped with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police are still investigating potential motives. A handwritten note left at the scene by the gunman referenced feelings of unhappiness as the reason.
St Louis Police Chief, Michael Sack urged people who suffered from mental distress or knew anyone speaking about “causing harm to others” to speak up
FBI agents are now involved in the investigation.
During the attack, students were forced to barricade classrooms, jump from windows and run from the building to escape.
One student told the KMOV local news station that the attacker had walked up to a friend and asked her: “You ready to die?”
Raven Terry said: “We just ran real, real fast… and we were just crying, all shaken up about it.”
Taniya Gholston, 16, told the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper that the gunman had entered her classroom and tried to shoot her.
“I was trying to run and I couldn’t run,” she said. “Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed.”
She said she overheard the attacker saying “I’m tired of this damn school”.
Police said the gunman graduated last year from the school and had no history of criminal behaviour.
“Our children shouldn’t have to experience this,” St Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said at a news conference after the shooting.
“They shouldn’t have to go through active shooter drills in case something happens. And unfortunately, that happened today.”
Data from the Education Week outlet show there have been at least 35 school shootings, in which at least one person was killed or injured, so far this year.
Earlier on Monday, a teenager in Michigan pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including terrorism and first-degree murder, after a rampage at his high school last November.
