At least 2 dead in St Louis, High School shooting

A shooter who broke into a high school in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday morning killed a mother and a teenage girl and wounded six others before being shot and killed by police.

Students at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School were compelled to barricade doors, hide in classroom corners, leap from windows, and flee the building in order to find safety when a shooting occurred shortly after 9 a.m. One terrified young woman claimed she was face to face with the shooter when his rifle allegedly jammed, allowing her to escape.

Others present at the school claimed to have overheard the gunman saying, "You are all going to die." A security guard and police officers who "rushed to the gunshots" helped put an end to the shooting before additional people were killed or injured, according to the city's police chief.

Police Chief Michael Sack revealed during a press conference that the shooter was around 20 years old but he would not name him or his victims. He opted not to mention whether the murdered woman was a teacher.

Seven security officers were stationed inside the secured facility at that time, according to St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams, each at a different entry point. One of the guards saw the man attempting to enter through a closed door but failing. According to Sack, the guard made sure police were called and informed school administrators.

“It was that timely response by that security officer, the fact that the door did cause pause for the suspect, that bought us some time,” Sack said.

He would not reveal how the individual eventually entered the building while carrying what he characterised as a long gun. Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, another magnet school that was evacuated, shares a building with Central Visual and Performing Arts. Collegiate has 336 students, whereas Central has 383.

Officers worked to get students out of the three-story brick building, then “ran to that gunfire, located that shooter and engaged that shooter in an exchange of gunfire,” killing him, Sack said.

According to a count by Education Week, the school shooting on Monday was the 40th to have injured or killed someone this year. This is a record for any single year since the publication started keeping track of shootings in 2018. These include the Robb Elementary School shootings in May in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers perished. The attack in St. Louis occurred the same day a Michigan kid admitted guilt to terrorism and first-degree murder in a December 2021 school massacre that claimed the lives of four pupils.

According to Sack, some of the six hospitalised patients had gunshot wounds while others had been hit by shrapnel. He said nothing about their health situations.

Taniya Gholston, 16, a student, said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she was in a room when the shooter entered the school.

“All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” Gholston said. “And I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed. But we saw blood on the floor.”

Tishaura Jones, the mayor of St. Louis, was shaken by the incident.

“Our children shouldn’t have to experience this,” Jones said at the news conference. “They shouldn’t have to go through active shooter drills in case something happens. And unfortunately, that happened today.”

The school system cancelled all after-school programmes, including athletics, and put all of its schools on lockdown for the rest of the day.

A magnet school with a focus on the visual, performing, and musical arts is Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. The educational programme at the school is "designed to create a nurturing environment where students receive a quality academic and artistic education that prepares them to compete successfully at the post-secondary level or perform competently in the world of work," according to the district website.

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