Teen shot in arm at Highland High School in Palmdale, California; suspect in custody
A 14-year-old boy is in custody on suspicion of shooting a teen in the arm at a Southern California high school Friday morning, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
The shooting happened at or near Highland High School in Palmdale around 7 a.m. PT, even as some students still were arriving at school, sheriff’s Capt. Darren Harris said.
The names of neither the suspect nor the wounded teen, also 14, were immediately released. The injured teen brought himself to a hospital and is expected to recover fully, Harris said.
It’s the 21st school shooting in the United States this year.
Witnesses who were outside the school described hearing a gunshot or gunshots, and seeing students running from the building.
The suspect was apprehended near a Vons grocery store about a mile from the school, a Los Angeles County fire official said. Authorities found a rifle believed to have been used in the shooting “a distance away (from the school) in the desert,” Harris said.
Harris said investigators were trying to determine what led up to the shooting.
Even after the arrest, the school still was on lockdown as of 9:30 a.m. PT, and officials were trying to determine when and how to release students, Principal Chris Grado said on Twitter.
A brother of some Highland High students, Ricky Munoz, 23, told CNN he had just dropped his two younger brothers and a friend off at the school just after 7 a.m.
“About a minute later, I get a call from them saying there were gunshots” and they asked to be picked up, Munoz said.
One of the brothers, 16, told Munoz he heard one gunshot, and that students were running.
Students barricaded themselves in classroom, mom says
Nadine Luke told CNN her 18-year-old daughter called her, screaming, after she heard shots in the school. The teen was in her Reserve Officers’ Training Corps class, and said students were putting sofas and desks in front of the classroom door and windows to barricade themselves inside, Luke said.