Teenage Gunman Fires Shots, Takes Hostages at Calif. High School

[recon228]

OROVILLE, Calif. - A student fired shots inside a high school Friday and held three students hostage for more than an hour before he was taken into custody, authorities said. No one was injured.

The 17-year-old student initially took about 30 students hostage in a band room at Las Plumas High School. He quickly released most of them, but held three girls for about an hour longer before he was arrested, Capt. Jerry Smith of the Butte County Sheriff's Department said.

The gunman's only demand to deputies during the standoff was that they "back off," he said.

Six schools in the Oroville Union High School District were locked down while a deputy talked to the hostile student on a cell phone. Authorities said the teenager fired two shots at random from a handgun.

"We made him realize that the best thing for him and everyone concerned was to release the remaining three hostages," Smith said.

The boy's name was not released because of his age. Smith said he was a student at the school.

Turbo Her, an 18-year-old senior who was in the class, said other students initially thought it was a joke. "I said, 'Oh no, this is a real gun,'" Her said. "The girls were crying and hysterical. He wanted to scare them, to let them know it's real."

One shot was fired into the ceiling, Her said. Eventually, the gunman said that "anyone who's scared can leave," and about 26 students left. The gunman kept the hostages behind, Her said.

Another student, Candace Carey, 18, said she was in algebra class next door to the drama classroom where students were taken hostage. She said she and her classmates crawled out a window to flee.

Parents were directed to an Oroville church to be reunited with their children, and cars were backed up for half a mile leading to the church.

Oroville is 80 miles north of Sacramento.

Link - http://www.comcast.net/news/national...28/775277.html

[Fireand'chutes77]

Yike.

Thank goodness nobody was hurt (although, in all probability, severely traumatized). I guess it'll spill out in the next few days what the motive was and what was wrong with the kid.

This type of thing seems to happen so often these days... Your generation grew up under nuclear annihilation; at least you knew that if you were hosed, the entire county was hosed with you. I'm growing up in a world where you could be that poor sucker who walks by that ticking sedan at just the wrong time... happens to board American Airlines Flight 11 on just the wrong day... or happens to be in just the wrong classroom...

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On a lighter note - Turbo! What a name!

[campy]

Very sad story.

On a lighter note - Turbo! What a name!

Yes, and how often do you get to see "Her said" in print, and grammatically correct?

[lunchmeat]

Somebody should have told him that there are easier ways to get girls to talk to you.

At least nobody was physically injured. If Oroville is the same place I'm thinking of, I lived not to far away, in the distant [ast.

[recon228]

If Oroville is the same place I'm thinking of, I lived not too far away, in the distant past.

Oroville is just south of Chico and north of Sacramento...

[lunchmeat]

That's why it sounded familiar, I lived at various places in the Bay area(Sunnyvale, Monterey, Berkeley, Alameda, Treasure Island, Vallejo, not places I could afford to live, now) at different times and used to drive up to Lake Tahoe on the weekends now and again.