Monday March 5 2:22 PM ET
Fifteen Injured in Calif. High School Shooting
By Leonard Novarro
SANTEE, Calif. (Reuters) - At least 15 people were injured when a grinning teenage gunman opened fire inside a high school in this San Diego suburb on Monday in the latest act of gun violence to terrorize an American school, police and witnesses said.
A local television station reported that one person had died, but it could not be immediately confirmed.
Police said a security guard, a guidance counselor and a sheriff's deputy were among those injured in the shooting at the 2,000-student Santana High School about 10 miles east of San Diego.
Witnesses said that the shooting was carried out by a lone student, who was smiling as he opened fire with a handgun on his fellow students in a hallway after loading his gun in a boys' restroom. The boy was in custody, police said, but they declined to give further details and squads of officers searched the school for a possible second suspect.
It was the latest act of school violence in the United States since April 20, 1999, when two teenage gunmen killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado before taking their own lives.
George Stevenson, a student who described himself as the best friend of the freshman being held as the suspect in the shooting, said the youth talked this weekend of a plan shoot people and flee to Mexico, but, ``I thought he was joking.''
He gave no reason why the youth would have wanted to attack his fellow students.
Daniel, a student at the school, told local television station KGTV that the shooting broke out unexpectedly.
``All I heard was pop pop pop, three or four gunshots went off, and that's when everybody started running,'' Daniel said. ''Most of my friends took off.''
Alicia Zimmer, a student at the school, told KGTV that the gunshots broke out as classes were changing.
``I was probably about 10 feet away from a couple of the victims ... it was in the middle of the hall, the small quad .... I saw a victim, a boy, laying on the floor, with his face downward. There was another girl standing there with blood all over her arms,'' Zimmer said.
``A lot of people were standing around in a circle looking at the girl ... all of a sudden we heard more shots go off. It sounded more like a cap gun than anything.''
``It was really scary. Everybody was running. A whole lot of people were crying.''
San Diego County Sheriff's Department said they have one male teenage suspect in custody. Squads of heavily armed police swept through the school following the shooting to make certain there was not a second gunman.
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