12-year-old girl held for school shooting

LOS ANGELES: A semi-automatic handgun went off accidentally inside the backpack of a 12-yearold girl in a Los Angeles classroom, sending a single bullet tearing through the wrist of another girl before hitting a boy in the head, police said on Friday.

Los Angeles police spokesman Josh Rubenstein said detectives were trying to figure out how and where the girl got the gun, which was unregistered, and why she brought it to school.

It was not clear what made it fire. The girl, was taken into custody minutes after the shooting. She was not answering questions, Rubenstein said.

She is expected to appear in court tomorrow on two charges, including being a minor in possession of a firearm and having a weapon on school grounds, prosecutors said.

The shooting sent children screaming and crying from the classroom. Police descended on the school and the girl was arrested without incident.

Terrified parents rushed to the school and waited for hours to be reunited with their children.

The 15-year-old boy who was hit in the head by the bullet was in critical condition.

A doctor at the Los Angeles County-usc Medical Centre, where the children were being treated, said he expected the boy to make a full recovery.

The wrist wound to the 15-yearold girl was considered minor. Three others had superficial face or head injuries, some from broken glass.

Pete Gagliardi, a former agent with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the gun wouldn’t necessarily had to have been cocked to go off in the girl’s backpack, but probably would have had to have become entangled with something inside the bag for the trigger to have been pressed.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has a policy which requires every middle and high school to conduct daily random searches with metal-detector wands at different hours of the school day. – Ap/african News Agency (ANA)