Feb 12, 2008 2:33 pm US/Pacific
15-Year-Old Student Shot In SoCal Classroom
OXNARD (AP) ―
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Onlookers surround E.O. Green Junior High School.
CBS
A 15-year-old boy was shot and wounded in a junior high school computer lab on Tuesday and another eighth-grader was taken into custody, authorities said.
22 other students were in the E.O. Green Junior High lab at the time, said Hueneme School District Superintendent Jerry Dannenberg.
There was a dispute between the boys but it was premature to state a motive, said Police Department spokesman David Keith.
"This appears to be personal in nature, some bad blood between them. It was not random," he said.
The wounded boy was initially in extremely serious condition when he was taken to St. John's Regional Medical Center but he improved and was in the intensive care unit, Keith said.
"We are guardedly optimistic he will make a recovery," the police spokesman said.
Police did not release the victim's name or describe his wound.
Keith said the weapon was a handgun but he did not now how many shots were fired.
The student in custody was being interviewed at a police station but by early afternoon had not been booked, Keith said.
The other students in the class were also being interviewed by police.
Police began receiving calls of a shooting in a classroom at 8:37 a.m. and 40 officers arrived within minutes and found the victim on the ground, Keith said. The suspect was seized minutes later a few blocks away.
The 1,150-student school was locked down and worried parents gathered outside.
"It was a very chaotic situation here with parents arriving all over the place. It was a traumatic situation," Keith said.
Students were kept inside and were being released classroom by classroom to meet their parents outside.
The students involved in the incident were in an English class that had moved from a classroom to the computer lab and the shooting occurred near the end of the first period, Dannenberg said.
Students elsewhere in the school were told through loudspeakers to stay in place, he said.
The one-story campus, which teaches grades six though eight, does not have metal detectors.
"I still think the school is safer than any other place in society," the superintendent said.
Parents were notified that school would be in session Wednesday and a crisis team would be present.
"This kind of incident is the most difficult for police officers," Keith said. "A 15-year-old should be allowed to go to school and be in a safe environment but this sort of thing happens all over the country."
The school is in south Oxnard near a Navy base at Port Hueneme in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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