Assistant principal is killed in school shooting

A Campbell County High School shooting victim arrives at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Tuesday. PHOTO: AP

An assistant principal was killed and two other administrators remained in critical condition on Tuesday after a 15-year-old student opened fire in a Tennessee high school.

"It just takes your heart away," Campbell County Sheriff's office spokesman Larry Skeen said. "I have a child that goes to that school. No one saw this coming."

The shooting occurred in the office of the principal shortly after 2:00pm, wreaking havoc in the school of 1,400 students in a small town about 50km north of Knoxville, Tennessee.

No students were injured in the shooting and they were evacuated after a brief lockdown.

"I was in my class and we had a substitute and he left and the class teacher next door come and get us and he told us we were in a lockdown," student Nathan Lawson told CNN. "We went over to his room and then he told us what happened. There was a lot of kids that were worried."

The boy accused in the crime is reported to have recently been sent to reform school.

Student Ethan Ross doesn't know the boy well, but told CNN that he had a drug problem.

"I knew him back in elementary school and didn't think he could do something like this," Ross said, adding that the assistant principal who was killed, Ken Bruce, was well-liked in the school.