12-year-old student wounds classmate in California school shooting

The United States still cannot shake the specter of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which occurred at the end of the last school year. A new period begins and with it the threat of armed violence. A 13-year-old student was injured Monday in a shooting at a high school east of Oakland, California, the city just east of San Francisco. The police have arrested the person responsible, a 12-year-old boy, and have recovered the weapon used in the incident that forced the closure of the campus. This new episode caused anguish among the parents, who came to take their children without causing chaos.

“Gun violence has impacted all areas of our city, our schools as well,” Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said at a press conference Monday, asking city residents to keep guns away from the public. reach of minors. The authorities have reported that these two boys are, at the moment, the only ones involved in the event, of which they have not given further details. The injured minor was taken to a hospital in the area, where he would undergo surgery. His condition is stable, the mayor of the city of 400,000 inhabitants has reported.

The shooting was reported to emergency services minutes after one in the afternoon, while the classrooms were full. This Monday began the fourth week of classes in the city, which returned to the classroom on August 8. The institute, Madison Park Academy, has 750 students between the ages of 11 and 18. Most of these are Latino. The police have not explained if the shooting occurred inside the educational center facilities or on the street. It’s also unclear if the minor in custody is a student at Madison Park Academy.

“I didn’t know how to react, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” Roman Guerrero, a student, told local television. Another student, Zacary Masonroa, said that the teachers asked them to contact their parents while they asked the police for support. “We were sitting and calm, not knowing what to do,” he added.

The school began to be evacuated. Around 1:30 p.m. the parents began to arrive. According to Armstrong, the police chief said that the departure of the students took place in an orderly manner, without scenes of panic. “The parents were very courteous, they acted very calmly and understandingly. They cooperated with us, ”he assured at the press conference. Images from the local press showed a large group of people waiting at the gates of Madison Park Academy for their children and relatives to leave.

The school was empty by 4:00 p.m. Oakland school district officials are expected to release a statement this afternoon with more details of what happened. A city councilor came to the school after hearing the information from a police captain. “I am outraged,” Treva Reid assured The San Francisco Chronicle, who showed up at the school to help the teachers. Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, wrote on Twitter that schools should be the safest places for children. He called the level of gun violence in the county and in the city “unacceptable.”

The reality is very different, as the shooting in Uvalde showed, a city that has not yet overcome the trauma and that will return to the classroom next week. In Oakland, the police chief recalled how armed violence has penetrated schools and public parks. “No one is immune to this level of gun violence anymore,” Armstrong said. “There are too many guns on our streets. And it is a matter of time before incidents like this are repeated. Parents who have guns have to do better. They must call us. We have to get these weapons out of the hands of our children,” added the agent.

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