School shooting in St. Louis leaves 3 dead, including shooter

A shooting Monday morning at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis left a woman and teenage girl dead and six others injured.

According to The Associated Press, police shot and killed the assailant in an exchange of gunfire.

According to the AP, students hid in classrooms behind locked and barricaded doors and when possible left the building, including some who jumped from windows. The AP reported that “one terrorized girl said she was eye-to-eye with the shooter before his gun apparently jammed and she was able to run out.”

During a news conference after the attack, police Commissioner Michael Sack did not name victims or the shooter, but said the latter was about age 20.

The AP reported that seven security guards were on scene, each at one of the school’s entry points of the locked building, per the St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams.

The building was locked as the gunman tried to enter, carrying an apparent long gun. No details were provided on how he got into the building.

CNN reported: “The St. Louis Police Metropolitan Police Department reported the active shooter on Twitter, and about 45 minutes later, tweeted, ‘At this time, the scene is secure and there is no active threat.’”

According to KSDK, the woman died at a hospital, while the teenage girl was pronounced dead at the scene. Both died of gunshot wounds. KSDK quoted police, who said the injured suffered from “gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries and cardiac arrest.”

NBC News said that the Collegiate School of Medicine, which shares the building with the high school, was also placed on lockdown.

NBC quoted Sack, who said, “While on paper we might have nine victims, eight who were transported and one remained, we have hundreds of others. Everyone who survived here is going to take home trauma.”

CNN said that all St. Louis schools will be on lockdown through Monday.

Jeff Roberson, Associated Press

In all, the ordeal lasted about 40 minutes, math teacher David Williams told CNN. He said the shooter fired through one of his classroom windows and noted that police and the shooter shot at each other on the school’s third floor, where his classroom is located.

The article noted that “word of the shooting comes on the same day Michigan teen Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty to murder charges in a Michigan school shooting last year that left four people dead and seven injured. On Nov. 1, Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced for the February 2018 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died.”