A schoolboy armed with a shotgun opened fire and wounded two fellow students on Friday before killing himself in the latest US mass shooting, which came on the eve of the Newtown school massacre anniversary.
The shooter also set off a Molotov cocktail in the attack at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, a few kilometers from the sites of last year’s Aurora cinema shooting and the 1999 Columbine bloodbath, police said.
Hundreds of fellow students locked themselves into classrooms as the shooter stormed into the school brandishing a shotgun, shouting that he was looking for a particular teacher in what police said was apparently a planned “revenge” attack.
The US’ perennial debate about gun control is back in the headlines ahead of yesterday’s anniversary of last year’s Newtown, Connecticut, shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 young children.
In Friday’s incident, students locked themselves in classrooms after shots rang out shortly after 12:30pm, triggering an all-too-familiar police operation.
Live television footage showed lines of students filing out of the school with hands above their heads, gathering on an athletics track on the edge of a snow-covered field.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said the shooter — who entered the school via a normal entrance after arriving by car with a shotgun — injured two students, including a 15-year-old girl who underwent surgery and was listed in “critical condition.”
Initial inquiries suggested that the “shooting was the result of revenge on the part of the shooter because of ... a disagreement [with] the teacher that the shooter was looking for,” Robinson said.
“It was clear that he was armed with a shotgun. He made no effort to hide it or conceal it,” Robinson said.
He added that no warning was given before the attack.
Two Molotov cocktails were found, one of which was detonated and caused “a significant amount of smoke” as deputies arrived, he added.
Less than five minutes after the initial alert, the suspected gunman was “found inside the school ... deceased as a result of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” he added.
Robinson later identified the shooter to US media as Karl Pierson, 18.
One student described how he and his 25 classmates locked themselves in when the incident started as they sat in English class.
“We didn’t really know if it was a gunshot,” Colton Powers told local KDVR television. “We turned off the lights and locked the door, so he couldn’t go in.”
“A couple of people were crying,” he said, adding they did not come out until a police SWAT team arrived.
He said students believed the gunman’s target was a school librarian.
His mother fought back tears as she described frantically trying to get in touch with him.
“It’s hard to see this happening again. You don’t want this on the national news again,” she said.
“It’s the last thing you want to go through, especially here,” she added.
The school has more than 2,200 students and 70 classrooms. It is part of the Littleton school district, to which Columbine High School — scene of the 1999 shooting by two students in which 13 were killed — also belongs.
The incident came a day ahead of the first anniversary of the Newtown shooting in which Adam Lanza gunned down 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
A group representing parents of those victims voiced shock at the new shooting.
“We were horrified to hear today of a school shooting at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, just one day before the one year mark of the Sandy Hook shootings,” Sandy Hook Promise executive director Tim Makris said.
The Newtown shooting briefly reignited the US gun control debate, triggered every time there is a major shooting, but attempts to pass tougher laws have made little headway in US Congress.
“Tragically, this shooting marks the 25th school shooting in the one year since Dec. 14. Our hearts are with all the families of Arapahoe High School today,” Makris said. “It’s time to start a new conversation to protect our children.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number