The Shooting
On the day of the shooting, the start of school had been delayed by snow and not all students had arrived when the shooting began. Just before 9:00 a.m. (UTC-8), fourteen-year-old student James Scott Newman brought his mother's .38-caliber revolver to the school in his backpack. He removed the concealed pistol from his coat pocket and loaded it with three .38 caliber rounds while in the bathroom. He chose his target, student Alexander Rueda, 14, at random in a hallway outside the cafeteria. Before he started firing, a friend of Newman yelled at him to put the gun away, but Newman told him to run. He pulled the trigger twice but the gun did not fire because those chambers were empty. He then fired three times at Rueda. One bullet hit Rueda in the arm and torso, and another ricocheted and hit student Kenzie McKeon, 14, in the leg from the shrapnel. The two injured students had no prior relationship or arguments with Newman. Several students and teachers heard the shots and the physical education teacher, Jencie Fagan, approached Newman and challenged him. Fagan managed to convince Newman to drop his gun and then restrained him until more staff arrived to help.
Alexander Rueda was treated at Washoe Medical Center for his wounds and released the same day, while Kenzie McKeon only needed to be treated at the scene for superficial wounds. The school was placed on lockdown for an hour and then classes were canceled for the remainder of the day. The shooting was the second firearm-related incident on Pine Middle School grounds in two weeks, with the previous incident being a man brandishing a gun towards the campus. On this occasion school administrators sent students home as a precaution.
Read more about this topic: Pine Middle School Shooting
Famous quotes containing the word shooting:
“... though it is by no means requisite that the American women should emulate the men in the pursuit of the whale, the felling of the forest, or the shooting of wild turkeys, they might, with advantage, be taught in early youth to excel in the race, to hit a mark, to swim, and in short to use every exercise which could impart vigor to their frames and independence to their minds.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)