Nevada student shoots, kills teacher and self

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A student shot and killed a teacher and wounded two classmates before killing himself at his middle school in northern Nevada shortly before classes began on Monday, law enforcement officials said.

Both of the wounded students from Sparks Middle School were rushed to Renown Regional Medical Center in nearby Reno, where one of them underwent emergency surgery, said Tom Miller, acting Sparks police chief.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene at the school in the town of Sparks, located just east of Reno, after the gunfire erupted in an outdoor area as students were arriving for the school day.

“A kid started getting mad and he pulled out a gun and shoots my friend, one of my friends at least,” a seventh-grade student identified as Andrew told local KOLO-TV. “And then he walked up to a teacher and says back up, the teacher started backing up and he pulled the trigger.”

“The teacher was just lying there and he was limp, he didn’t know what to do, he was just in a lot of pain,” he told KOLO.

“And me and five other friends went to him and said come on we’ve got to get him to safety. We picked him up, carried him a little bit far and we left him because our vice principal came along and said go, go, go get to safety, get to safety. So we left the teacher there and we went to safety,” Andrew said.

The incident marked the latest in a string of shooting rampages across the United States in recent years, some of them at schools, that have reignited a debate over gun control.

In Connecticut last December, 20 students and six adults were shot to death by a gunman at a school in Newtown before the attacker took his own life in what is considered one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.

In Sparks, a 13-year-old eighth grader, Kyle Nucum, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he heard about half a dozen shots. Student Michelle Hernandez told the newspaper that she had seen the suspect before the shooting began.

“I heard him saying, ‘Why you people making fun of me, why you laughing at me,”’ Hernandez told the paper.

‘A TRAGIC DAY’

Mayor Geno Martini told a late-morning news conference that the shooting marked a tragic day for the city: “I just want to reiterate again that the city itself is very safe and this is just an isolated incident. But it’s very, very tragic and I’m saddened to be here to have to tell you this.”

Law enforcement officials said the student gunman opened fire at 7:16 a.m. local time, about 15 minutes before classes were scheduled to begin at the school, which serves about 700 seventh and eighth grade students.

“Students are arriving, buses are arriving ... Kids are congregating out back to play sports or waiting for the first bell to ring. The bell rings at 70,” said Mike Mieras, Washoe County School District police chief.

Some 150 to 200 police officers descended on the school following the shooting and searched the grounds with bomb dogs, Reno deputy police chief Tom Robinson said. Agents from the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security were assisting in the investigation, he said.

Robinson said it was too early to tell if the boy, who was not immediately identified by authorities, was targeting anyone in the shooting rampage. Authorities also declined to immediately speculate on his motives or to describe the gun used.

Classes and after school activities were canceled at Sparks Middle School for the rest of the week and counselors would be on hand to work with students and staff members who were traumatized by the shooting, the school district said.

Guys. Seriously. There is a thread specifically for shootings on this very page.

Aggie wrote:

Guys. Seriously. There is a thread specifically for shootings on this very page.

Yes. And if it was a valid exercise, we wouldn't have ENTIRE FORUMS dedicated to subgenres of shit! We'd have precisely ONE thread in New Releases, for example, that would be "All Purpose 'Teenager Writes Badfic' Thread!"

That's it. Seriously. There's a reason I was snarkily posting things like police and citizen defensive shootings in that thread. Because, as godawful as it is for someone to get shot, sometimes it has to be done. And those are never Antidotes, they're always at least a little bad, but they're not what we'd call godawful. And they deserve mention, too. But that's obviously not what that thread's for. It's for more of the same tired shit of "OH WHO'S TURN IS IT TO RESET THE 'DAYS SINCE LAST MASS SHOOTING' COUNTER" shit, targeting the USA. Never mind what JUST FUCKING HAPPENED BUT CURIOUSLY FAILED TO SHOW UP IN THE SHOOTING THREAD. Gee, I can't imagine why... could it be because it happened in a not-US country, full of brown people?

I reject the All-Purpose Shooting thread simply on the grounds that there is no such thing. There are good and bad reasons to shoot someone. Celebs drop dead all the time. Obscure celebrities die of natural causes in their 80s often, they die of overdoses, DUI car-crashes, and generally rich privileged shit, so the Celebrity Deaths thread serves its own purpose reasonably well as an easily-ignored depository of deaths that probably don't concern the average forum member. But the All-Purpose Shooting Thread is a cynical exercise in painting a gratuitously dark picture revolving around only the USA that warps the perception of the reader in an irresponsible way. I'd give its honorable intentions the benefit of the doubt... if it hadn't been posted by Nihilist.

Penguin wrote:

Aggie wrote:

Guys. Seriously. There is a thread specifically for shootings on this very page.

Yes. And if it was a valid exercise, we wouldn't have ENTIRE FORUMS dedicated to subgenres of shit! We'd have precisely ONE thread in New Releases, for example, that would be "All Purpose 'Teenager Writes Badfic' Thread!"

That's it. Seriously. There's a reason I was snarkily posting things like police and citizen defensive shootings in that thread. Because, as godawful as it is for someone to get shot, sometimes it has to be done. And those are never Antidotes, they're always at least a little bad, but they're not what we'd call godawful. And they deserve mention, too. But that's obviously not what that thread's for. It's for more of the same tired shit of "OH WHO'S TURN IS IT TO RESET THE 'DAYS SINCE LAST MASS SHOOTING' COUNTER" shit, targeting the USA. Never mind what JUST FUCKING HAPPENED BUT CURIOUSLY FAILED TO SHOW UP IN THE SHOOTING THREAD. Gee, I can't imagine why... could it be because it happened in a not-US country, full of brown people?

I reject the All-Purpose Shooting thread simply on the grounds that there is no such thing. There are good and bad reasons to shoot someone. Celebs drop dead all the time. Obscure celebrities die of natural causes in their 80s often, they die of overdoses, DUI car-crashes, and generally rich privileged shit, so the Celebrity Deaths thread serves its own purpose reasonably well as an easily-ignored depository of deaths that probably don't concern the average forum member. But the All-Purpose Shooting Thread is a cynical exercise in painting a gratuitously dark picture revolving around only the USA that warps the perception of the reader in an irresponsible way. I'd give its honorable intentions the benefit of the doubt... if it hadn't been posted by Nihilist.

Thank you for that quote; I am now off to watch Pacific Rim again.

And before anyone accuses me of not caring or being too blasé, I say: what's the point of getting angry over something that is never going to change?* If some nutcase shooting up an elementary school doesn't affect a change in gun control, nothing will. These incidents will continue to happen, the NRA and their ilk will continue to make excuses, the politicians that could change things will remain bought by the pro-gun lobby, and business will continue as usual.

* Within the USA, of course. I can't speak with any certainty of any other country.

Aggie wrote:

And before anyone accuses me of not caring or being too blasé, I say: what's the point of getting angry over something that is never going to change?* If some nutcase shooting up an elementary school doesn't affect a change in gun control, nothing will. These incidents will continue to happen, the NRA and their ilk will continue to make excuses, the politicians that could change things will remain bought by the pro-gun lobby, and business will continue as usual.

Well said.

Aggie wrote:

And before anyone accuses me of not caring or being too blasé, I say: what's the point of getting angry over something that is never going to change?* If some nutcase shooting up an elementary school doesn't affect a change in gun control, nothing will. These incidents will continue to happen, the NRA and their ilk will continue to make excuses, the politicians that could change things will remain bought by the pro-gun lobby, and business will continue as usual.

Fuck this that's part of the problem. It's not normal, it's not regular, and it shouldn't be characterized as such. It should be talked about at great length by anyone who wants it to stop happening, and the only thing worse than squirrelling away all the news stories into a tidy list on one thread is complaining about people not doing that.

Hawaiian Shirt wrote:

Aggie wrote:

And before anyone accuses me of not caring or being too blasé, I say: what's the point of getting angry over something that is never going to change?* If some nutcase shooting up an elementary school doesn't affect a change in gun control, nothing will. These incidents will continue to happen, the NRA and their ilk will continue to make excuses, the politicians that could change things will remain bought by the pro-gun lobby, and business will continue as usual.

Fuck this that's part of the problem. It's not normal, it's not regular, and it shouldn't be characterized as such. It should be talked about at great length by anyone who wants it to stop happening, and the only thing worse than squirrelling away all the news stories into a tidy list on one thread is complaining about people not doing that.

I dispute this. With the frequency of these shootings increasing, it is now not 'normal' so much as 'not in any way unusual.' People can talk about change all they want but the people in positions to actually affect change will not allow anything to progress because, as I said earlier, they have been bought, and bought politicians stay bought until there is a huge and immediate personal benefit to themselves. Period.

Talk about the problem all you like. I, for one, am simply tired of talking to, about, and towards the brick wall that is American politicians (who are the ones who can change things, but won't). What can you possibly say about this shooting that wasn't said at the military yard shooting? Or Sandy hook Elementary School? Or the Aurora movie theatre? Everything that can be said about it has been said, and nothing has changed. Why do you expect this time to be any different?

...except the fact is that these shootings are rarer and rarer, despite media coverage.

Aggie wrote:

Thank you for that quote; I am now off to watch Pacific Rim again.

Great as that movie is, this is an actual Thing on sites like Fark.

These types of shootings are exceptionally rare. Think about how many schools there are in the US and how many school days occur in the US. One of the things that would prevent these types of catastrophes is an improvement in school culture. I currently work in a school that has a high population of students who have had rocky HS experiences and would easily be labeled as potential school shooters. HOWEVER. However, our school has managed to create a very tight community where the students feel like they're in a family. In fact, the school is set up so each period is 75 min. instead of 50, giving me tons of time to meet with students individually and do a check in (progress, extra help, general wellness)

Of course, Sandy Hook was a weird exception due to the fact that the shooter was not a student and wasn't even within the age group.