Atlanta school shooting: 14-year-old shot in head
A police officer responds outside Price Middle School after a shooting, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013 in Atlanta. / AP Photo/John Bazemore
Updated 5:33 p.m. ET
ATLANTA A 14-year-old boy was wounded after being shot in the head outside a middle school Thursday afternoon and a fellow student was in custody as a suspect, authorities said. No other students were hurt.
Police swarmed Price Middle School just south of downtown Atlanta after reports of the shooting at 1:50 p.m., while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were being kept at the locked-down school some two hours after the shooting but television footage showed some of them being dismissed.
The wounded boy was taken "alert, conscious and breathing" to Grady Memorial Hospital, said Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos. Atlanta Public Schools said on their website that the suspect also was a student at Price.
Campos said the injury was not life-threatening and investigators believe something occurred between the two people involved that may have led to Thursday's shooting.
Calls to the school district were not immediately returned.
The scene after a shooting at Price Middle School in Atlanta on Jan. 31, 2013.
/ CBS AtlantaAtlanta Fire Cpt. Marian McDaniel said the teen was shot in the back of the head and a teacher was treated at the scene for minor cuts.
Shakita Walker, whose daughter is an eighth-grader at the school, said she received a text from her that said "Ma somebody's shooting and somebody got shot." Walker, who works at another school, said she jumped in her car and was thinking "just hurry up and get there."
Walker said her daughter called to tell her that they were being kept in the gymnasium, but she said she was anxious to see her to make sure she was OK.
The fear and anxiety was palpable in the crowd, as one person yelled "Does anyone know what happened?"
Mayor Kasim Reed condemned gun violence in a statement shortly after the shooting and said counselors were already at the school to meet with students, faculty and family members.
"Gun violence in and around our schools is simply unconscionable and must end," Reed said. "Too many young people are being harmed, and too many families are suffering from unimaginable and unnecessary grief."
Outside the school, Laquanda Pittman said she still hasn't heard from her sixth-grade son. She said she heard the news of the shooting on TV and immediately came to the school.
"All types of stuff went through my head. I'm wondering whether it was my child who got shot, is my child OK, did he see what happened?" Pittman said.
She said she just wants to see her son.
"As a parent, you just think you can send your child to school and you hope they come home OK," she said.
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Yep, it sure helped at Columbine school to have an armed guard.
Authorities said an armed officer at the school was able to disarm the gunman moments after the incident occurred.
There are metal detectors at the school, according to Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis.
No where do any articles say that the armed guard shot the shooter but rather disarmed the shooter. Also, remember the Columbine school shooting? THE SCHOOL HAD AN ARMED GUARD!! A lot of good that did.
The guy who stopped the shooter was an armed school guard. This a critical point that was on purposely left out. This article is trying to manipulate the American people and assumes the public are too stupid to think for themselves and need to be told what to do.
An open press is critical to a democracy. This article and author are promoting anti-democratic and a dictator point of view.
I demand a Congressional investigation on the author, the owner and this network.
Free speech is one thing...Lying by omission to manipulate the public is something else. It is more than arrogant...it is an assault on our current democracy and an attempt at a sort of putsch. I wonder if the word attempted treason could be invoked here?
Get over yourself. Posts disappear all the time!
Why does this report not mention that the shooter was stopped by an ARMED security officer at the school? I'll tell you why, it's because to admit something like that would put credibility to Wayne LePierre's statements after Sandy Hook and we can't have anyone believing the NRA has common sense now, can we?
Kid was pissed off at victim. If it wasn't a gun, it would have been a knife or a baseball bat and would not have gone past the local newspaper for coverage.
Not only should there be armed guards at schools but also armed teachers too.
Authorities said an armed officer at the school was able to disarm the gunman moments after the incident occurred.
There are metal detectors at the school, according to Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis.
No where do any articles say that the armed guard shot the shooter but rather disarmed the shooter. Also, remember the Columbine school shooting? THE SCHOOL HAD AN ARMED GUARD!! A lot of good that did.
It seems the right wingers are on all the wrong sides of all the "debates".
You'll see that knives, hammers, and kicking each kill more people than ALL rifles (assault + hunting)!! So the politicians are more interested in sensationalism rather than meaningful solutions. But yes you have a point re transfer of firearms - universal background checks would solve this, especially if there is an easily downloadable sales form that the seller can keep to protect themselves against liability from subsequent use. Gun safes would go a long way to reducing these thefts too.