At Least 8 Killed in Texas School Shooting, Deadliest Since Parkland
At least eight people
are dead after a gunman opened fire inside a high school near Houston, Texas on
Friday, according to a local sheriff. As many as 10 people
may have died at at Santa Fe High School, most of them students, Harrison
County Sheriff Ed Gonzales said. That is the highest number of fatalities at a
school shooting since the February 14 massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas
High School in Parkland, Florida killed 17 people.
Santa Fe is the 22nd school shooting in 2018, according to CNN
Florida
shooting: US high school students stage mass walkout
Witnesses said that
the shooting began around 7:30 a.m when the gunman burst through
the door of an art class and yelled “surprise!”
before opening fire. Liberty Wheeler, a
student, told The
Houston Chronicle that she heard “five shots ring out near the art
room,” and she then hid in the “theater department's storage room” before being
escorted out by a SWAT team.
“You could smell the
gunpowder that came from the gun,” Wheeler told the Chronicle. “We
were all scared because it was near us.” Student Tyler Turner
told KPRC that
he sat in his classroom when he “heard really loud booms” and “really didn't
know what they were at first.” “Then, I realized what
they were when I heard screaming,” Turner said. “I never thought it would
happen here”