A 15-year-old boy opened fire with a handgun in his high school in western Kentucky on Tuesday, killing two classmates and wounding a dozen others before being arrested, the state's governor and police said.
The shooting began shortly before 8 am CST (1400 GMT) at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, a town about 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Nashville, Tennessee, according to Kentucky State Police and Governor Matt Bevin.The bloodshed was the latest outbreak of gun violence that has become a regular occurrence at schools and college campuses across the United States over the past several years.
Fourteen students were struck by gunfire, and two of them were fatally wounded. One, a 15-year-old girl, died at the scene, and a 15-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a hospital trauma center, Bevin told a news conference hours later.
Five of the 12 surviving wounded students were taken to the same trauma center, and another five students suffered non-gunshot injuries, Bevin said.
Police said the violence erupted when the 15-year-old suspect walked into the school armed with a handgun and started shooting. The governor said the youth was apprehended at the scene "in a nonviolent way." No further details of the circumstances of the shooting were immediately divulged by authorities.
None of the students involved were being publicly identified, Bevin said.
