A student who opened fire in a hallway at a Spokane area high school killed a classmate who confronted him Wednesday and wounded three others before being stopped by a custodian, authorities said. The suspect, who a classmate described as being obsessed with previous school shootings, was taken into custody.
The wounded victims were seriously injured but expected to survive, officials said. The shooter brought two weapons to Freeman High School in Rockford, south of Spokane, but the first one he tried to fire jammed, Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich told reporters.
“He went to his next weapon,” Knezovich said. “A student walked up to him, engaged him, and that student was shot. That student did not survive.”
The sheriff said the shooter fired more rounds down the hallway, striking the other students, before a school custodian approached the shooter and ordered him to surrender, Knezovich said. Knezovich called it a courageous act that prevented further bloodshed.
Elisa Vigil, a 14-year-old freshman, told The Associated Press that she saw one male student shot in the head who janitors covered with a cloth and another female student wounded in the back. Michael Harper, a 15-year-old sophomore, said the suspect had brought notes in the beginning of the school year, saying he was going to do “something stupid” and might get killed or jailed. Some students alerted counselors, the teen told AP, but it wasn’t clear what school officials did in response.
