Houston, May 18: A student opened fire at a high school in the US state of Texas today, killing at least 10 people, mostly students, in the latest such incident in the country.
The incident took place at Santa Fe High School in the city of the same name, located about 50 kilometres southeast of Houston.
An unidentified law enforcement officer was shot, but sources said he was “clipped” and was not seriously injured.
At least 10 people — nine students and a teacher — were killed in the gunfire, CNN quoted a law enforcement official as saying.
Authorities have said two people have been detained in the shooting at Santa Fe High School. Federal law enforcement officials identified one of them as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, and said he is suspected of having fired the shots.
The shooter used a shotgun and a revolver that were legally owned by his father, Governor Greg Abbott said.
“We need to do more than just pray for the victims and their families. It’s time in Texas that we take action to step up and make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again,” Abbott told reporters Friday.
“Officers inside encountered a bloody mess in the school,” a source said, adding, “Evidently this guy threw pipe bombs all in there. We don’t know if any of them went off.”
A search of the school is ongoing, Gonzalez said. He said he has no information about explosives being found at the scene.
Ten other students were injured in the shooting.
This is the third school shooting in the past seven days, and the 22nd since the beginning of the year in the US.
Today’s bloodshed is the worst mass shooting in America since February, when 17 people were gunned down at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
Witnesses described students running from the school as they heard gunshots; they also described hearing an alarm at the school.
Junior Liberty Wheeler, 14, was in class when she heard five shots ring out near the art room.
Her teacher told them to run toward the theatre department’s storage room, where they hid for 45 minutes before being escorted outside by the SWAT team.
“You could small the gunpowder that came from the gun,” Wheeler recalled as she was escorted out of the building. “We were all scared because it was near us.”
President Donald Trump expressed concern over the incident.
“School shooting in Texas. Early reports not looking good. God bless all!,” he tweeted.
He expressed “sadness and heartbreak” over the incident, describing it as “absolutely horrific”.
“This has been going on too long in our country.”
“My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools, and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves, and to others,” he said.
Trump has previously favoured arming teachers instead of gun control measures.
Today’s shooting was the third at a US school in recent days.
On Wednesday, an Illinois school resource officer shot and wounded a former student who fired a weapon near a graduation rehearsal at Dixon High School, authorities said. The suspected gunman faces three charges of aggravated discharge of a firearm.
On May 11, a 14-year-old boy in Palmdale, California, went to Highland High, his former school, and began shooting a semiautomatic rifle shortly before classes began. He was taken into custody and is accused of attempted murder. One person was wounded.
