15-year-old student accused of killing 2 at Ky. high school
Shootings leave wound that may ‘never heal’
BENTON, Ky. – A 15-year-old student opened fire Tuesday at a high school in rural Kentucky, killing two people and wounding a dozen more, authorities said.
Gov. Matt Bevin said five others suffered non-shooting injuries in the rampage and chaos that followed at Marshall County High School in Benton. Authorities believe all the victims were students, Bevin said. He said the suspect would be charged with murder and attempted murder. “This is a wound that will take a long time to heal,” Bevin said. “For some in this community, it will never heal.”
The gunfire broke out in a common area of the school at 7:57 a.m. local time before classes started. The 911 call came in two minutes later. First responders reached the scene at 8:06 a.m., and the shooter was arrested without further violence, Bevin said.
A 15-year-old female student died at the scene, and a 15-year-old male student died at a hospital, Bevin said.
Marshall County Attorney Jeff Edwards said it did not appear the gunman targeted specific people. “To walk in, the backpacks lying around, the phones lying around, going off ... it’s indescribable,” Edwards said.
Representatives of the state police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the scene.
Students were bused from the high school to a nearby middle school. Benton is a town of fewer than 5,000 people in western Kentucky, about 120 miles northwest of Nashville. Several victims were taken to the hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Marshall County High School is about 35 miles southeast of Heath High School in West Paducah, where on Dec. 1, 1997, Michael Carneal fired on a group of praying students. Carneal, 14, killed three people and wounded five.
Sophomore Daniel Austin, 17, a special-needs student, was among those who were shot Tuesday, said his brother, Shane Story, 23. “I was watching TV this morning, and I got a phone call from my stepmom saying there had been a school shooting, and it freaked me out,” Story said. “I sensed something was wrong with my brother.”
Daniel was one of the students flown to Vanderbilt Medical Center. His brother said he is a “positive influence” for other students, and the odds look good for his survival. “He told me to be strong,” Story said. “It’s hard to be strong when it’s your little brother.”
Former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a mass shooting in 2011 in Tucson that left six people dead, called for action. “Our nation’s schools should be some of the safest spaces in our communities,” she said in a statement. “Why do we keep allowing this terror to happen?”