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 said at a press conference. The sheriff said the teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head but declined treatment.

The shooting at Taft Union High School came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 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.

When the shots at Taft 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 (193 kilometers) 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.

At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, a Democrat, 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. (AP)

<관련 한글 기사>

美고교에서 학생이 학생에 총격… 1명 중상



미국 캘리포니아주의 고등학교 교실에서 학생이 급우에게 총을 쏘는 사건이 벌어졌다.

10일 (현지시간) 오전 9시께 로스앤젤레스 북쪽 컨 카운티의 태프트 고등학교 과학관 2층 교실에 이 학교 학생이 샷건을 들고 들어와 학생 한 명을 향해 발사했다.

곧바로 범인은 다른 학생에게도 총을 쐈지만 총알은 빗나갔다.

총에 맞은 학생은 응급 헬리콥터에 실려 50 km 떨어진 베이커스필드 병원으로 후송됐으며, 중상을 입은 것으로 보인다고 지역 언론은 보도했다.

교사는 달려온 다른 교사와 함께 총을 쏜 학생을 설득해 총을 내려놓도록 한 뒤 경찰에 넘겼다.

학교에 무장 경비원이 배치됐지만 이날 출근길에 눈이 많이 와서 아직 출근하지 못했던 것으로 드러났다.

하지만 경찰은 신고를 받은 지 1분만에 현장에 도착했다.

컨 카운티 베이커스필드의 23ABC방송은 제보자가 학교 건물 안 옷장 속에 숨어서 총격사건 발생 사실을 전화로 알려왔다고 보도했다. (코리아헤럴드)