Post date: Dec 14, 2013 12:59:35 AM
Student opens fire at Colorado high school, wounds 2 classmates
CENTENNIAL, COLORADO, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 13, 2013) (NBC) - A student seeking to confront one of his teachers opened fire at a Colorado high school on Friday (December 13), wounding at least two classmates before apparently taking his own life, law enforcement officials said.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told a televised news conference that one student victim was in serious condition with gunshot wounds at a local hospital. A second suffered minor injuries and may not have been hit by bullets.The accused shooter was later found dead inside the school after he "apparently killed himself," the sheriff said, adding that authorities knew the boy's identity and were in contact with his family.
"We believe that the shooter, that is deceased, was the only individual that was armed in this school today and came here to cause the harm to the students and our faculty at his facility. However, that remains under investigation," Robinson said.
Students were running out with their hands raised and gathering on a track field before they were searched by police and boarded into school busses.
A witness of the shooting, Fabian Llerenas, said: " I saw the kid. He was just.. he saw me and he kind of did like that.. and he just kept running all the way in.. into the school. Right away that's when I grabbed my radio and I let everyone know, security, and that's when I head to the two loud bangs. He turned that corner to go into the library, looking for Tracy. He was upset with him, and this is how I got to... This is unreal."
Centennial is a suburban community south of Denver, not far from the unincorporated community in nearby Jefferson County that is home to Columbine High School, where two students gunned down 13 students and staff before killing themselves in 1999.
"It is hard because we also went through the Columbine, I had my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law there when that happened, and then my daughter which is there now texts me, saying: "Are you Ok, Dad?" Just a little while ago, because obviously they have heard and it is very emotional. It is hard because you see it. once you see something like that it's...," Llerenas said.
This incident comes a day before the first anniversary of the mass shooting in Newtown,Connecticut, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School before killing himself and a day after American University in Washington, D.C. was locked down for a gunman search.