A woman and a teenage girl were killed on Monday morning in a shooting inside a St. Louis high school.
Reports indicated that the gunman was also killed in the shooting, while six others were taken to hospitals with injuries.
At a news conference, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said the injuries ranged from gunshot wounds to shrapnel wounds.
“This is a heartbreaking day for all of us,” Sack told reporters. “It’s going to be tough. While on paper we might have nine victims … we have hundreds of others. Everyone who survived here is going to take home trauma, even the officers who responded here and the firefighters and the paramedics who worked on people here are going to experience some degree of trauma.”
Sack said the gunman was about 20 years old and has not been positively identified.
Shots rang out a little after 9 a.m. at the Central Visual & Performing Arts High School, part of the St. Louis Public Schools, leading students to be evacuated with their hands in the air.
Police officers were seen helping the fleeing students scale fences and buildings. A SWAT team also responded.
Nylah Jones, a ninth-grader, said she was in math class when the gunman fired into the room from the hallway, the Post Dispatch reported.
Students gathered in one corner of the classroom and tried not to move as the shooter banged on the door, she said.
Teacher Michael De Filippo told the paper: “Once you heard the boom, all the chuckling and laughing in the back of the room stopped.”
Taniya Gholston, a 16-year-old student, said the assailant’s gun eventually jammed and that she heard him say something about being “tired of this damn school,” the Post Dispatch reported.
