Eight Dead At Texas High School Shooting, Police Confirm

ABC 13

Eight people have been confirmed dead and others are reportedly injured after a high school shooting took place in Texas.

One person is in police custody after the shooting at the Santa Fe High School, which is about 40 miles (65 km) south of Houston, according to school officials and local reports.

Students were evacuated from Santa Fe High School amid a heavy presence of law enforcement and medical first responders.

Possible explosive devices have also been found at the school campus, ABC News reports.

Santa Fe school district said in a statement saying:

This morning an incident occurred at the high school involving an active shooter. The situation is active, but has been contained. There have been confirmed injuries.

Speaking to Associated Press the assistant principal claimed the shooter ‘has been arrested and secured’.

Local media report at least eight people were confirmed dead by mid-morning, this came from a source with the local police department. ABC News report the shooter is a student.

One Santa Fe student told KHOU local news he saw a girl limping after she had been shot in the leg.

Major Douglas Hudson of Galveston County sheriff’s department, said units were responding to reports of shots fired but had no immediate information as to whether anyone had been hurt in the shooting.

Another student, who spoke to Houston television station KTRK via a telephone interview, claimed the gunman came into her first-period art class and began shooting.

She says:

We thought it was a fire drill at first but really, the teacher said, ‘Start running’.

Dakota Shrader, a 10th grader at Santa Fe, described to one reporter how a friend was shot in the leg, she said:

We were in class, it was first period. The alarm started going off, everybody went outside, all the teachers were like ‘get this way, get this way, come over here’. Next thing you know we hear the booms and everybody starts running as fast as they can.

And the next thing you know all the art [class] windows are getting shot, shattered.

However, authorities have yet to confirm these eyewitness accounts as they continue to evacuate the high school which is currently on lockdown.

On Twitter, the Harris County sheriff, Ed Gonzalez, tweeted saying his officers were responding to a ‘multiple-casualty incident’.

He also added:

One is in custody, a second one detained. An injured police officer is being treated, the extent of his injuries are unknown.

It is unknown whether the second detained person is involved in the shooting, but local news has stated he is a ‘person of interest’. Gonzalez also confirmed one police officer has been injured.

According to one student at the school speaking to ABC 13 the gunman walked into the class, yelled ‘surprise’ and started shooting.

President Donald Trump has already sent out a Tweet in response to the shooting, he wrote:

School shooting in Texas. Early reports not looking good. God bless all!

It is the 22nd school shooting this year, according to CNN.

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