Shooting at a school in Southern California: what is known about the shooter and the victims

14 November in Santa Clarita (California) at school Saugus high school shooting occurred. Two students were killed, three more were injured, the police are investigating the case, and the school is still closed. Writes about it USA Today.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, after an 16-second armed attack, the suspect shot himself in the head and, according to recent reports, is in serious condition in the hospital.

Pupils who have recently been instructed in actions in case of shooting at school still cannot believe that this actually happened.

This incident was the 30 school shooting in the 2019 year.

What happened

Near 07: 30 local time, the shooter pulled a semi-automatic 45 caliber pistol from his backpack and opened fire. There were about 2500 high school students at the school. The shooter managed to get into five students.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said surveillance footage shows a guy entering school, taking a pistol out of his pack and starting firing.

Villanueva reported that the gun was obviously jammed, and the shooter had to spend some time fixing it before starting to shoot again. Then he used the last bullets on himself.

According to Villanueva, the incident took 16 seconds. The sheriff also said that the suspect shot indiscriminately, he did not have a specific target.

Who is the suspect

Officials described the suspect as a student of a school of Asian appearance who turned 16 years old the day before the shooting.

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Neighbors and classmates described the boy as pleasant, but noted that he changed after his father died two years ago. Classmates identified the boy, although law enforcement agencies have not yet named him.

The suspect was a quiet, normal student, classmate Brooke Risley noted.

“He was not like doing anything like that,” said Risley.

Although the teenager sometimes looked sad, his neighbor Jared Axen said he had never seen a guy very angry.

According to the obituary, his father died of a heart attack in December 2017.

“I was surprised how calmly he took the death of his father,” Aksen commented, adding that he played chess and shot airguns with the boy. “Most likely, these two years of pain led to two years of anger,” writes USA Today.

“A quiet child who’s on his mind,” described guy Ryan McCracken, an 20-year-old neighbor. When he was younger, he played with the suspect. “I did not expect anything like this from him.”

A memorial video with photos that were posted on the Internet after the death of his father showed that he was holding a rifle or shotgun in numerous hunting photos taken by himself or other hunters.

According to Axen, the boy’s family moved to Santa Clarita over 20 years ago. Records show that he lived with his mother, older sister and father, until he died.

Aksen said that he is very sympathetic to the boy’s mother, because she lost both her husband and son. According to Axen, the shooter's sister moved after her father’s death and went to college.

Who are the victims

16-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy died in a local hospital. Captain Kent Wegener of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office said there are three more victims - two girls, 14 and 15 years old, and 14-year-old boy. The police do not name the victims.

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According to recent reports, two of the wounded are in good condition, the third - in satisfactory.

Wegener said that, in addition to attending the same school, law enforcement officials found no connection between the shooter and the victims.

How the suspect got a gun

Law enforcement officials did not disclose information about how the suspect received the weapons used in the attack. An 16-year-old man could not buy it legally: in California, licensed dealers are not allowed to sell firearms to persons under the age of 21.

Were there any warning signs

Police are investigating social media posts that might have been made by the suspect, Wegener said. Including on Instagram, where there was a message: “Saugustomorrow at school it will be fun. "

This account did not belong to the suspect, later the user announced his publications as a joke.

“We disabled this account for violating our policies,” an Instagram spokeswoman said. “We can confirm that it did not belong to the shooter.”

Wegener said his agency had examined the recent threats against Saugus High and identified two of them. Both were studied - it is believed that they are not related to shooting. The authorities did not determine the motive, but did not believe that it acted for religious or ideological reasons.

What security measures have been taken

The school district’s website says that every campus has a security specialist assigned, and schools have checkpoints and supervisors. The Saugus High school grounds are fenced, it has a dozen surveillance cameras, but so far there are no metal detectors.

“The gates to the school grounds are closed during school hours and, as a rule, open only when students leave the campus for lunch or go home at the end of the day. Visitors are sent to the office for registration, ”the site says.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• On the morning of November 14 in Saugus High School (California) fired. Two people died, three more were taken to Henry Mayo Hospital.

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