Multiple people were killed on Friday in a shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, CNN reported, in the latest gun violence in a country still shaken by the massacre at a Florida high school in February.
Citing unnamed sources, CNN said there were multiple fatalities after the shooting at the school about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Houston.
The sheriff’s office for nearby Harris County said its deputies were assisting with a “multiple-casualty incident.”
“This is no longer an active shooting situation and the injured are being treated,” the sheriff’s department said on Twitter.
The school district in Santa Fe, said the situation was “active, but has been contained.” Local media reported that a suspect was in custody.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote of the shooting on Twitter: “Early reports not looking good. God bless all!”
Houston-area media reported that the Harris County and Galveston County sheriff’s offices were also sending deputies to the scene, and that a medical Life Flight was called to the school.
Aerial video outside the school broadcast on local television showed police escorting lines of students out of the building and then searching them for weapons as many police cars and at least two ambulances with lights flashing stood by.
Sophomore Leila Butler told the local ABC affiliate that fire alarms went off at about 7:45 a.m. local time and students left their classrooms. She said some students believe they heard shots fired, and that she was sheltering with other students and teachers near campus.
Another sophomore, named only as Nikki, told ABC13 that: “Someone had walked in with a shotgun and a girl got shot in her leg.”
The latest reports of a possible shooting at a U.S. school underscored a national debate over gun control and gun rights that intensified after an assailant killed 17 students and staff members in February at high school in Parkland, Florida. {eoa}
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