A fight at a Texas high school ended in gunfire on Wednesday morning, sending three people to a hospital, police said. One of the victims is in critical condition.
An 18-year-old suspect was identified and placed in custody after a police search for the person who they said was armed and dangerous. He will be charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, police said.
At least two of the four injured people, one of whom did not require hospitalization, suffered gunshot wounds, police said. Three were students at Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas, they said.
Timberview High School was in lockdown as police work to locate a person with a weapon on campus, according to CBS News Dallas Ft. Worth.
The shooting began after a fight broke out at the school and is not a random act of violence, according to the police.
We are on scene at a shooting at Timberview High School. We are doing a methodical search and working closely with @ATFHQ @mansfieldisd Police, @MansfieldPDTX @GrandPrairiePD and other agencies. We will be announcing a parent staging location soon once the location is identified pic.twitter.com/R08TuHPMHh
— Arlington Police, TX (@ArlingtonPD) October 6, 2021
Arlington Police informed parents that they had set up a parent reunification area at a nearby center for performing arts, saying that students would be bussed to the area once the school had been secured.
Someone who said that they are a teacher at the high school said that “shots were fired just down the hall from our classroom," on social media, CBS News Dallas Ft. Worth reported, emphasizing that the identity of the person was not confirmed.
Timberview is part of Mansfield Independent School District, a large district in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area comprised of 49 schools serving more than 35,000 students.
So far this year, there have been at least 101 incidents involving gunfire on U.S. school grounds, resulting in 21 deaths and 56 injuries, according to Everytown for Gun Safety https://everytownresearch.org/maps/gunfire-on-school-grounds, a gun violence prevention organization.
The group recorded at least 96 such incidents, resulting in 23 deaths and 43 injuries, in 2020.