Thursday March 22 5:34 PM ET
Student, Gunman Wounded at School Near San Diego

EL CAJON, Calif. (Reuters) - A teenager with a shaved head got out of a car, assumed a sniper position and began shooting at students outside a high school in this San Diego suburb on Thursday, hitting at least one person before police shot and injured him, witnesses said.

The incident at the 2,900-pupil Granite Hills High School took place less than three weeks after another student killed two students and injured 13 others in a gun rampage at Santana High School, just 6 miles away.

A witness said he heard six or seven shots and then saw students running out of the school via a back entrance, calling on their cell phones for help.

A student eyewitness told CNN that the shooter ``clutched down'' in a sniper position and opened fire after getting out of a car.

The witness said he fired at least eight shots and reloaded a second time.

The youth, who was described as having a shaved head, was believed to be a former student who graduated last year.

A spokesman at a local hospital said the shooter was 18 years old and was undergoing emergency surgery after being shot in the face and buttocks by police.

A 16-year-old teenager who was shot by the gunman was being treated for shotgun pellet wounds to his upper chest.

Neither person's injuries were described as life-threatening. a police spokesman said.

El Cajon is adjacent to Santee, Calif., where two students were killed and 13 others injured when a student opened fire with his father's gun at Santana High School on March 5.

That was the worst act of violence in a U.S. school since April 1999 attack on Columbine High School in Colorado in which 15 people were killed, including two teenage gunmen who took their own lives.

A middle school and elementary school adjacent to Granite Hills High School locked their doors and were keeping students inside, officials said.

Students described a frightening scenario that seems almost a repeat of what happened in Santee.

One boy told CNN via telephone that he heard about seven shots fired: ``I was walking from the bathroom and I heard the shots rang out and it sounded like an explosion from a chemistry classroom. ... Then a couple more. When I heard the other ones go off I just ran to the car.''

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