Sam Amico
A student who brought a gun into a charter school in Mesquite, Texas, was shot by police, authorities said.
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School officials said the armed student entered Oates Campus Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy early Monday. Police were dispatched to the campus shortly thereafter and reportedly attempted to negotiate with the suspect.
“During the process of negotiating, an officer-involved shooting occurred,” police officials said.
It is not clear if the student fired the gun. The suspect’s age or identity has not been revealed.
The suspect was taken to the hospital following the shooting. No one else was injured, police said.
Several students who spoke to NBC 5 in Dallas said the school was on lockdown during the ordeal.
“At first when I heard that we were on lockdown, I thought it was just a normal drill because it’s my first one,” one student told NBC 5. “Once they actually told someone and there were people inside the building and there were cops, then I was like, ‘Oh, so this is real,’ and then we had to get in a corner and hide and make sure everything was silent. We couldn’t talk for, like, hours.”
“They told us to stay in the class until the second team comes and then we’d go to the church and I heard, like, a gunshot,” another student told NBC 5. “It was pretty scary.”
School officials said that classes will continue to be held.
“We want to inform our school community that thanks to the swift actions of our staff and the immediate implementation of our school safety plans and procedures, the situation was contained,” school officials said in a statement. “We have rigorous safety protocols in place to handle such incidents effectively and efficiently to ensure the well-being of our school community. Today, those procedures were tested, and they worked as intended.”
