Still breaking, few details. First school mass shooting since Covid?
Update: 1 dead, police officer injured.
Is the shooter dead?
Damn. This is in addition to the fact that there’s been a shooting of some kind every day somewhere in the country. Damn.
A police officer was wounded in a shooting at a high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, authorities said Monday. Officials said the person who shot the officer, a student at Austin-East Magnet High School, died at the scene when police returned fire.
At 3:15 p.m. local time, police responded to a report of a male who was possibly armed in the school. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch said police found the suspect in a school restroom. Police ordered him out, but he refused.
Rausch said that as police entered the restroom, he “reportedly fired shots, striking an officer.” One officer returned fire, and the student was pronounced dead at the scene. There are no other known gunshot victims, police said.
After saying earlier that one person had been detained, the authorities stated on Monday night that the individual might have been a witness.
So my first impression is that the student’s death could have been prevented if the police had simply waited outside the restroom instead of rushing in.
I saw on another website that this has been the FIFTH fatal shooting of a student who attended this school, although none of the others were at the school. One of them was a youngster who was declared missing last fall but not found until March.
It’s only national news because a police officer was involved, and it appears to have been a semi-successful murder/suicide.