A 14 year old boy of South Carolina killed his father first then drove to an elementary school and started shooting with a handgun on Wednesday. Authorities said two children and a teacher were wounded.
Within minutes the volunteer firefighter Jamie Brock nabbed the boy. Capt. Garland Major with the Anderson Country Sheriff’s Office said that the boy shot in the leg of one student and in the foot of the other. Both were male students. The female teacher was shot in her shoulder.
Superintendent of Anderson County School District 4, Joanne Avery said, “We are heartbroken about this senseless act of violence.” For the rest of the week she canceled all the classes.
According to the authorities, the teen first shot his 47 year old father Jeffrey Osborne at his house about two miles from the school. Authorities didn’t disclose the name of the boy as he was a teen.
Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore stated that after shot his father the boy called his grandmother’s cellphone and crying. The grandparents couldn’t understand what was going wrong so they reached at his home just 100 yards away. There they found Osborne was dead and their grandson was not there.
The authorities got a 911 call about one minute later from Townville Elementary School. Sheriff John Skipper said the shooter drove a car into the school parking and as soon as he got out from the car he started firing. The boy never entered the school building.
Authorities didn’t tell the motive of the boy and they weren’t sure whether the boy targeted the students and the teachers. According to sheriff, the boy was home schooled and his mother was at work at the time of the incident.
Juana Slade, a spokesperson of AnMed Health Medical Center said that one of the students and the teacher was treated and released from the hospital. Sandy Dees, a spokeswoman of Greenville Health System stated that the another student aged 6 year was still in critical condition.
The school has about 300 students in its pre-kindergarten to sixth grade classrooms. After the tragedy was over, all the students were taken to a nearby charge where they reunited with their parents.
Earlier this month a similar incident took place at a rural Texas high school. A 14 year old girl shot and injured another student. The girl later died of her own gun shot wound.