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"Roswell school shooting: Boy, 12, opens fire, wounds two students"
At least no one died this time...
ROSWELL, N.M.—
As mourners gathered for an evening vigil, witnesses described the pandemonium inside a middle school gymnasium when a seventh-grader opened fire with a shotgun, gravely injuring two students before classes began.
This southeastern New Mexico farming community of 50,000 was coming to grips with the nation’s latest school shooting, which sent a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, both students at Berrendo Middle School, to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas.
At a late-night news conference, state police identified the victims as Nathaniel Tavarez and Kendal Sanders. Nathaniel remained in critical condition after two surgeries, police said. Kendal's condition had been upgraded from serious to satisfactory.
New Mexico Police Chief Pete Kassetas said officers had interviewed 60 of the 500 people who were inside the gym at the time of the shooting. He said authorities planned to search the suspect's Roswell home, his school locker and his backpack.
Kassetas identified the weapon used in the shooting as a shotgun whose wooden stock had been sawed down, apparently to fit inside the bag in which it was sneaked into school.
He said police were investigating whether the shooter “published on social media about the attack.”
14-year-old Blas Mendez, in an interview with The Times, said he knew the suspect, who, he said, had warned friends and cousins not to go to the gym that morning. “He told them to go to the cafeteria instead."
He said the boy also warned of his attack on social media Sunday, two days before the shooting. Blas showed a post under the suspect’s online nickname that read, “Tomorrow will be the first Monday that will be fun for me lol never thot I’d say that.” However, it turned out the school was closed Monday because of plumbing problems.
"HEARD THE BANGS"
"I walked into the gym and heard the bangs, but I thought it was a joke -- people pop bags in school all the time,” said Mendez. "I didn’t think it was a gun until I heard all the screaming and crying."
"The shooter was quickly stopped by one staff member who walked right up to him and asked him to set down the firearm, which he did," Martinez said. CNN quoted Martinez as hailing the intervening teacher as a "hero" for his action.
Melissa Miranda was one of more than 1,000 community members who attended the vigil Tuesday night at the Roswell Convention Center, where people recited prayers and sang songs to the lead of a chorus and guitar player.
Miranda said all three of her children, two daughters and a son, were at the school at the northern end of town when the shooting occurred.
“I told them that no matter how bad this situation was, no matter how sad it makes you feel, it could have been a lot worse,” she said. “That young man had a gun and he opened fire in a crowd of students.”
Diego Miranda, 14, said the shooting took place before classes began and after the students had congregated in the gym, rather than in the schoolyard, because the day was cool and blustery.
He said the students were assembled on two facing bleachers, the eighth-graders taking up one and the sixth- and seventh-graders sitting in separate sections on the other.
“All the sixth- and seventh-graders started screaming and crying because they were the closest,” Diego said. “People started running out of the gym.”
Ellen Paiz, 13, was also in the gym. “I heard the first shots and thought they were fireworks,” she said.
On Tuesday night, she sat inside the convention center with her mother and a friend. Tears streamed down Ellen's face. “I turned around to see if anyone was hit and I saw a teacher hit the floor," she said.
The young shooter had a shotgun in his hand, Ellen said, and she looked down and saw the boy who had been shot on the floor in front of him. “There was blood everywhere,” she said, sobbing
TWO SHOOTINGS, THREE MONTHS
The shooting was the second to take place at a U.S. middle school in three months, after a 12-year-old boy opened fire at his middle school in Sparks, Nevada, in October, killing a teacher and wounding two students before killing himself.
It comes amid a contentious national debate on gun control that intensified after a gunman shot dead 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Following that attack, President Barack Obama called for sweeping new gun control measures.
Most of Obama's proposals were defeated in Congress, but his administration proposed new regulations this month aimed at clarifying restrictions on gun ownership for the mentally ill and bolstering a database used for firearms background checks.
Kassetas said the shooter was not believed to have had help from others. He also praised the intervening teacher.
"It's one thing for an armed state police officer to enter the school and do his or her job. It's another thing for a teacher... to intervene in a situation like this," he said.
Classes at Berrendo Middle School are canceled on Wednesday and will resume on Thursday, Burris said.
Reuters and Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
As mourners gathered for an evening vigil, witnesses described the pandemonium inside a middle school gymnasium when a seventh-grader opened fire with a shotgun, gravely injuring two students before classes began.
This southeastern New Mexico farming community of 50,000 was coming to grips with the nation’s latest school shooting, which sent a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, both students at Berrendo Middle School, to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas.
At a late-night news conference, state police identified the victims as Nathaniel Tavarez and Kendal Sanders. Nathaniel remained in critical condition after two surgeries, police said. Kendal's condition had been upgraded from serious to satisfactory.
New Mexico Police Chief Pete Kassetas said officers had interviewed 60 of the 500 people who were inside the gym at the time of the shooting. He said authorities planned to search the suspect's Roswell home, his school locker and his backpack.
Kassetas identified the weapon used in the shooting as a shotgun whose wooden stock had been sawed down, apparently to fit inside the bag in which it was sneaked into school.
He said police were investigating whether the shooter “published on social media about the attack.”
14-year-old Blas Mendez, in an interview with The Times, said he knew the suspect, who, he said, had warned friends and cousins not to go to the gym that morning. “He told them to go to the cafeteria instead."
He said the boy also warned of his attack on social media Sunday, two days before the shooting. Blas showed a post under the suspect’s online nickname that read, “Tomorrow will be the first Monday that will be fun for me lol never thot I’d say that.” However, it turned out the school was closed Monday because of plumbing problems.
"HEARD THE BANGS"
"I walked into the gym and heard the bangs, but I thought it was a joke -- people pop bags in school all the time,” said Mendez. "I didn’t think it was a gun until I heard all the screaming and crying."
"The shooter was quickly stopped by one staff member who walked right up to him and asked him to set down the firearm, which he did," Martinez said. CNN quoted Martinez as hailing the intervening teacher as a "hero" for his action.
Melissa Miranda was one of more than 1,000 community members who attended the vigil Tuesday night at the Roswell Convention Center, where people recited prayers and sang songs to the lead of a chorus and guitar player.
Miranda said all three of her children, two daughters and a son, were at the school at the northern end of town when the shooting occurred.
“I told them that no matter how bad this situation was, no matter how sad it makes you feel, it could have been a lot worse,” she said. “That young man had a gun and he opened fire in a crowd of students.”
Diego Miranda, 14, said the shooting took place before classes began and after the students had congregated in the gym, rather than in the schoolyard, because the day was cool and blustery.
He said the students were assembled on two facing bleachers, the eighth-graders taking up one and the sixth- and seventh-graders sitting in separate sections on the other.
“All the sixth- and seventh-graders started screaming and crying because they were the closest,” Diego said. “People started running out of the gym.”
Ellen Paiz, 13, was also in the gym. “I heard the first shots and thought they were fireworks,” she said.
On Tuesday night, she sat inside the convention center with her mother and a friend. Tears streamed down Ellen's face. “I turned around to see if anyone was hit and I saw a teacher hit the floor," she said.
The young shooter had a shotgun in his hand, Ellen said, and she looked down and saw the boy who had been shot on the floor in front of him. “There was blood everywhere,” she said, sobbing
TWO SHOOTINGS, THREE MONTHS
The shooting was the second to take place at a U.S. middle school in three months, after a 12-year-old boy opened fire at his middle school in Sparks, Nevada, in October, killing a teacher and wounding two students before killing himself.
It comes amid a contentious national debate on gun control that intensified after a gunman shot dead 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Following that attack, President Barack Obama called for sweeping new gun control measures.
Most of Obama's proposals were defeated in Congress, but his administration proposed new regulations this month aimed at clarifying restrictions on gun ownership for the mentally ill and bolstering a database used for firearms background checks.
Kassetas said the shooter was not believed to have had help from others. He also praised the intervening teacher.
"It's one thing for an armed state police officer to enter the school and do his or her job. It's another thing for a teacher... to intervene in a situation like this," he said.
Classes at Berrendo Middle School are canceled on Wednesday and will resume on Thursday, Burris said.
Reuters and Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
At least no one died this time...
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