Teenager may face gun charge as two students wounded

A gun in a US student’s backpack went off when he dropped the bag, wounding two students at his high school, police said.

The 17-year-old could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon and other charges, said police Captain Bill Hayes.

Capt. Hayes said it was “plausible” that the shooting was an accident, but that the boy was negligent to bring a loaded handgun to Gardena High School, a sprawling 1950s-era Los Angeles school with courtyards and rows of barracks-like classrooms.

John Deasy, incoming superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said there was no indication the student with the backpack had touched the gun before it discharged.

“He literally dropped his knapsack on the desk, and it went off,” Mr Deasy said.

Deputy police chief Patrick Gannon said the student apologised before running to another classroom. “He said, ’I’m sorry’, when the gun went off. It made it appear to the teacher that it was an accident,” he said.

Detectives are trying to figure out where the boy got the 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was recovered.

He is being held at a juvenile detention centre after police interviewed him and his mother, Capt Hayes said.

Two 15-year-olds were struck with the same bullet, Mr Gannon said.

A girl suffered a skull fracture and bruising to the brain and developed a significant blood clot when the bullet grazed her skull, said James Ausman, a neurosurgeon at Los Angeles County Harbour-UCLA Medical Centre.

The blood clot was removed but the girl remained in critical condition. A boy was in fair condition after being hit in the neck.

The suspect was on probation for a fight at school last year, Capt Hayes said.

The shooting occurred in a classroom at the school, where principal Rudy Mendoza said students were on a break. The 2,400-student campus about 15 miles south of downtown LA was locked down after the incident.

It was unclear how the student got in with the gun in his backpack, school district spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said. Arriving students are checked with security wands on a random basis at Gardena High, she said.

No district school is equipped with walk-through metal detectors.

Frantic parents rushed to the school after hearing about the shooting, pacing nervously as they waited behind police tapes for word from their children. Nelda Robledo, one of the worried parents who gathered near the school, said her 16-year-old daughter texted her that students were ordered to get down on the ground or hide in a corner after the shooting.

Discipline has been a problem at Gardena, which ranks as one of the district’s lowest-performing high schools. Roughly 35% of students drop out.

Five years ago, more than 2,000 students were suspended, and 15 expelled. Those figures remained high until last year when the number of suspensions dropped to 300 and expulsions to two.

The school also was the scene of a shooting in February 2002, when three assailants tried to hold up two students in an outdoor area. Two students were shot.