A gunman opened fire Monday inside a high school in the Midwestern U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri, killing two people and wounding six others before police fatally shot the suspect.
St. Louis Police Commissioner Michael Sack told reporters the two deaths were a teacher and a teenage girl at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. He said the other victims suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds.
Sack said police officers “ran to the gunfire” and exchanged fire with the shooter, which he said helped to end the shooting before more people were hurt.
Students at the school told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that many of them barricaded themselves in their classrooms to stay safe.
David Williams, a math teacher at the school, told the paper that the school principal came over the loudspeaker around 9 a.m. and said the code word that indicated a school shooter was in the building.
St. Louis Public Schools said on Twitter that the shooter was “quickly stopped by police inside CPVA.”
The suspected shooter has not been identified but was described by police as a man about 20 years old. Authorities said they did not yet know the shooter’s motive.
Central Visual and Performing Arts High School specializes in the visual and performing arts and has a student body of around 380.
The violence was the latest such shooting to take place at a U.S. school. One of the deadliest school shootings took place in May when a gunman killed 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said lawmakers must take measures to stop gun violence.
“Every day that the Senate fails to send an assault-weapons ban to the president’s desk or waits to take any other common-sense action is a day too late for families and communities impacted by gun violence," Jean-Pierre said.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
