A 12-year-old boy was arrested after he allegedly shot and wounded his 13-year-old classmate at a school in Oakland, California.
The shooting erupted at about 1.30pm on Monday at Madison Park academy in East Oakland. Local police said they were able to quickly detain the alleged shooter while his victim was hospitalized in what is now described as stable condition.
As news of the shooting spread, the school became surrounded by anxious parents desperately seeking news of their children.
Oakland’s mayor, Libby Schaaf, expressed relief that the victim was recovering but dismay at the ongoing gun violence battering the city and the US as a whole. “School should be the safest place for our kids,” she wrote on Twitter. “The increased level of gun violence in our country and our city is heartbreaking and unacceptable.”
Authorities have not said whether the shooting was accidental or intentional. Either way, the case highlighted the exceptionally high rate of death and injury suffered by children in the US as a result of the country’s permissive stance on guns.
According to the gun control group Everytown, death by firearm is the leading cause of death for children and teens in America. “This is a uniquely American problem,” the group says. “Compared to other high-income countries, American children aged five to 14 are 21 times more likely to be killed with guns.”
More than 3,500 children aged up to 19 are shot and killed in the US every year, and about 15,000 are shot and injured. That is an average of around 51 a day. The personal and psychological impact goes far wider, with about 3 million children annually estimated to witness a shooting.
Of the deaths by firearm among children and teens, homicides account for by far the largest portion, at 60%. Suicides follow at 35%, and accidents account for 4%.
KTVU reported that other children were present in Madison Park Academy when Monday’s shooting happened. Students hid in classrooms and the gym, the TV channel said.
A friend of the victim described how the shooting unfolded. “I was hanging with my friends when I heard gunshot,” the student said. “I heard my friend screaming – it turns out he was the one who got shot.”
Another student, 17, told KTVU: “I was worried that was potentially my last moments in case he decided to go ballistic and go crazy.”
There were six gun deaths in Oakland in recent days. On Friday, three people were killed in a shooting in the west of the city – two by gunshot and the third a bicyclist who was run over by somebody fleeing the scene.
Oakland’s police chief, LeRonne Armstrong, lamented the high level of shootings in schools and playgrounds, saying, “This is [affecting] every area in our city. Nobody one is immune from this level from gun violence.”
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Something has to be done in these cities, the crime has gotten completely out of hand the democrats are to blame the lack of interest in prosecuting people who rob, loot and burn innocent business owners lively hood, the out right riots in the street killing innocent people, letting criminals off with no bail, our court systems have become completely corrupt, police do their jobs and get punished for doing so and worse killed just sitting in their cars and nothing done to those killing them. I’d be more worried about the black killing black which has gone on for decades and yet the media stirs hysteria on white cops killing blacks but say nothing about blacks killing blacks – drugs and lawlessness is out of control! Guns are not the problem, children left alone to raise themselves, parents strung out on drugs with no idea what their kids are doing, grandparents raising children if their fortunate enough to have grandparents that are involved! We need discipline back in our schools and I’m not talking suspension your playing into their hands they can get suspended and do what ever they please. Cell phones need be only allowed but must be on silent mode until after and between classes only! Parents need to be held accountable for their child’s disrespect- respect, morals, and values must be brought back!~ Children need the basics of life, home education, managing of money, shop classes to promote a specific trade, dress codes must be reinstated! Sex, gender crap with regards to changing a child’s identity is not the schools place to promote identity confusion and teachers have no place promoting it! We have become a society of “good is evil and evil is good” and promoted by those who are suppose to be role models! Family values must be reinstated teachers working with parents and parents working with teachers! Children to readily diagnosed with ADHD(stop pushing the drugs which only contributes to drug addiction)- not it’s called pure boredom no actual life skills taught and children are not encouraged or matched with specific interest such as music (not the foul,vulgar,cop killing, parent hating, sexual crap of today), taught the value of hard work not hand outs! Children must be listened to and learn that there are consequences to their actions/behavior/speech! Society has and continues to promote the destructive wicked hate filled behavior we see everyday, so called news media is not news it spreads and promotes hate and does not give just the facts and tells how you should or should not think! The government has no business dictating how a child should be raised or educated! Government promotes nothing more than lazy dependency and tell people how to think they do not want people to think for themselves! Our so called politicians must stop all the hatred, disclosing of their opponents personal information, race bating dividing hatred, calling for violence against their opponents -(not allowing them to go to the store, the gas stations, their place of worship, their children’s schools and start acting like adults/better role models and keep themselves in check and doing their jobs without the influence of high paying lobbyist and work for the people who actually pay their salary’s -they should not become millionaires or billionaires on the salary they make, they must do their jobs set an example and stop the divide! only then will the country heal! Without God this is what we get! Politicians like to quoted Bible verses but take out of context to back what they believe without using the whole scripture! Politicians are pious self righteous above the law and extremely corrupt anymore (not all but majority-both sides) because no one holds them accountable, like a true job if they do not work or do what they were sent their to do they get no PAY period! They should live by the same bills passed for we the people, we should not foot the bill for living better then their constituents period! If our health insurance is good enough for those of us lucky enough to have it it should be good enough for them! When they leave office they do not get a lifetime salary and all the perks no different than those of us working for a living -you leave with the pension that’s it! They get Cobra like the rest of us! That ought to reduce the federal deficit by billions! But we know that wont happen
Do you feel better now?
Yes you are right and l guess your life is perfect.
Wow. True and explosive. A Sr Citizen understands this raising of children. Hope your comment reaches the masses. Would do us all good.
It’s funny how guns get the blame for injuring or killing some one. A gun cocked and loaded will not kill anything until an individual takes it up and pulls the trigger. What needs to be done is keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals.. How did this child get a gun to shoot the other child..??? Where are the parents. That’s who is the blame and not the gun but liberal democrats won’t blame the parents only the gun…. Where were some responsible school employee that could have recognize the threat and neutralized it…?????? No , lets just blame the gun that fits the liberal democrat agenda….
Tell it like it is Brighteyes! Here we go again with the gun control BS; the Left loves it, they are desperate to disarm the people as then they can really give them a Royal Fukking without having to worry about the deadly consequences of their “TOTALITARIAN WET-DREAM” of making life a LIVING NIGHTMARE for everyone but them! BAA, BAA, BAA, bleats the Left, HA, HA, HA, gloat the Stan worshiping, power-mad NWO-elitist ghouls! WTFU!
They’ve intentionally have taken God out of the “sc-fools” and replaced Him with their god Satan; and they are getting the results that they have plotted, FOOLS!
Gun violence is rampant because of lax enforcment of STANDARDS OF CIVIL BEHAVIOR AND TOTALLY LAX ENFORTCEMENT OF LAWS DESIGNED TO PUNISH THE PERPATRATORS OF CRIMES OF VIOLENCE, NOT INSUFFICIENT GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION. PROHIBITING GUNS WILL HAVE AS MUCH EFFECT ON GUN CRIME AS PROHIBITION HAD ON STOPPING ALCOHOLISM. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. REMEMBER, TOO, THAT THE SUPPRESSION OF FREEDEM IN SOCIETIES HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOLLOWED BY, OR ACCOMPANIED BY THE CONFISCATION OF WEAPONS OF SELF DEFENSE FROM THE GENERAL POPULATION. eg RUSSIA AFTERTHE BOLSHEVIC REVOLUTION, GERMANY AFTWE THE RISE OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM, NORTH KOREA AFTER THE TAKEOVER BY THE KIM DYNASTY, CHINA AFTER THE TAKEOVER BY THE MAOISTS, NORTH VIETNAM AFTER THE TAKEOVER BY HO CHI MINH, CUBA AFTER THE TAKEOVER BY THE CASTRO DYNASTY, VENEZUELA AFTER THE TAKEOVER BY THE MADURO REGIME,…. NEED I SAY MORE? THE STUDY OF HISTORY CAN BE QUITE ENLIGHTENING IN TERMS OF IDENTIFIYING WHAT WORKS AND WHAT WON’T IN TRYING TO CONTROL SOCIAL AND MORAL PROBLEMS… THINK ABOUT IT
This article states that the US sees a lot more children killed by guns than in other advanced nations, but they also say that the children can be as old as 19. Sorry, but 18 is the age of adulthood for most purposes. How many of those “children” were killed in gang-related incidents, and were possibly carrying guns themselves? Though we have no detailed breakdown, I would say that it’s likely that well over 90% of the homicides involve gangs. Remove those from the statistics, and all the suicide numbers, and it may be that the rest of the gun deaths of children may not be much higher than meteor deaths of children.