Suspect in LA School Shooting Believed to be 12 Year Old Girl

Two students were shot and wounded

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two students were shot and wounded, one critically, inside a Los Angeles middle school classroom Thursday morning and police arrested a female student believed to be 12 years old, authorities said.

A 15-year-old boy hit in the head was transported to a trauma center in critical but stable condition, according to fire department spokesman Erik Scott. A 15-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to the wrist was taken to a hospital in fair condition, Scott said.

Police arrested the female student and recovered a gun after the shooting that happened just before 9 a.m. at Salvador B. Castro Middle School, west of the city’s downtown. Preliminary information indicated she was 12, said Steve Zipperman, chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District police force.

Authorities did not immediately identify a possible motive, saying the investigation was in its early stages.

The district has a policy that requires every middle and high school campus to conduct daily random searches by metal-detector wands at different hours of the school day for students in the sixth grade and up. Officials have not said whether students at the school were subject to any weapons screening the day of the shooting.