One person was killed and one police officer was injured when gunfire broke out Monday at a high school in Knoxville, eastern Tennessee.
Police officers responded to reports of a possible armed man in a confrontation at Austin-East Magnet High School, authorities said.
No one else was killed or wounded, police said, adding that the scene at the school had been secured. Authorities only said that one man died and another person was arrested.
Police said they responded to the school around 3:15 p.m. when they ran into a man with a gun. “When approaching the subject, shots were fired,” the Knoxville Police Department posted on Facebook. “A Knoxville police officer was beaten at least once and taken to hospital with injuries that were not expected to be life threatening.”
The department originally tweeted that the authorities were at the school site and “several gunshot victims” were reported, “including a KPD officer.”
A student and a police officer were shot dead at school, a direct-to-speak source told the Knoxville News Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
The officer who was shot is the school clerk. He was shot in the hip and is undergoing surgery, the source said.
Bob Thomas, the superintendent of Knox County Schools, also tweeted that a shootout had taken place but the building was secured.
“The school building was secured and students who were not involved in the incident were given to their families,” said Thomas. In a separate tweet, he added that the authorities were gathering information about “this tragic situation”.
Police and rescue workers flooded the neighborhood around 3 p.m. and blocked access to the school and parts of the neighborhood.
Knox County Schools have set up a reunification point where parents can connect with their children attending school.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said agents went to school.
State MP for the district who attended school, Sam McKenzie, said in a statement, “I cannot describe my sadness as another horrific act of gun violence has taken place in my ward.” beloved neighborhood back. “
Republican Governor Bill Lee signed legislation last week to make Tennessee the newest state to allow most adults ages 21 and older to carry handguns – openly or hidden – without first undergoing a background check and training. Lee supported legislation regarding objections from law enforcement groups, who argued that the state’s existing licensing system was an important safeguard for knowing who should or shouldn’t be carrying a gun.
The law, which does not apply to long guns, comes into force on July 1st.
The shooting takes place amid a number of other high profile gun violence incidents, including mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado, the Atlanta area and Orange, California.
In the past few months, the deaths of four Knoxville teenagers has become a rallying cry for community members working to end gun violence.
Justin Taylor, a 15-year-old student from Austin-East, died on January 27 after police alleged a 17-year-old boy accidentally shot him while they were both in a car. Investigators quickly arrested the 17-year-old for criminally negligent murder.
Another teenager, Stanley Freeman Jr., 16, was fatally shot and killed on Tarleton Avenue on February 12 while driving home from school. Two boys, 14 and 16, were accused of fatally shooting him.
Janaria Muhammad, a 15-year-old freshman in Austin-East, was found shot dead in front of the house she lived in on February 16.
Jamarion “Lil Dada” Gillette, 15, died after being shot on March 9th. A woman found him wounded on the Cherokee Trail in South Knoxville near the University of Tennessee Medical Center and took the youth to that hospital. He died there on March 10th.
