CNN reported on Thursday that a 12-year-old girl was in police custody and being questioned by authorities after a shooting at the Sal Castro Middle School in Los Angeles that morning left five people injured, including four students. Two of the victims suffered serious gunshot wounds.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the gunshots began ringing out shortly after the school day began.
When police arrived at the scene at around 8:55 a.m., they found a 15-year-old boy had sustained a gunshot wound to the head, and a 15-year-old girl had been shot in the wrist. Dr. Carl Chudnofsky of the L.A. County-USC Medical Center said that the boy who was shot in the head is expected to make a full recovery.
The other three victims, who suffered less serious injuries, are a 30-year-old woman, a 12-year-old girl, and an 11-year-old boy, according to the Times.
A 13-year-old student at the school named Benjamin told the Times, “Someone decided to bring a gun, I guess someone was accidentally playing around with it. They thought it was a fake gun.”
Los Angeles School Police Chief Steve Zipperman said during a press conference on Thursday that it wasn’t immediately clear how a young person might have gotten access to a gun, cautioning “Los Angeles has a law about the safe storage of weapons; every responsible gun owner needs to take heed.”