Gardena High School Shooting

A teenager on Tuesday morning injured two students at a high school in California, police said, in what is being described as an ‘accidental’ shooting. The shooting happened around 10.30 a.m. local time when the handgun of a 17-year-old boy discharged at Gardena High School located in the 1300 block of West 182nd Street in Los Angeles. It left two other students injured.

Gardena police were rushed to the campus, as well as police helicopters, to aid in search efforts for the suspect. He was later arrested and identified as a Gardena student, although his name was not immediately released due to his age. A lockdown was later lifted.

According to officials, the handgun which was inside the boy’s backpack may have accidentally discharged, causing the injuries. However, police are continuing to investigate the incident and have placed the boy into police custody.

During this same week 18 years ago, a 16-year-old Fairfax High School student died after he was shot in the chest by a student who used a backpack to bring a .357-magnum handgun into a classroom. It was the first time a student in the Los Angeles Unified School District had been killed in a classroom.

On Tuesday, the mother of the slain student watched in disbelief as television news crews reported that two Gardena High School students were shot after a classmate brought a handgun on campus in a backpack.

“All I could do was sit there and listen to it in disbelief,” Mildred Hunt told The Times. “It was just like a video replay.”