An Atlanta high school shooting left four students injured as authorities detained three individuals for questioning in regard to the incident.
The incident was a drive-by shooting at Benjamin E. Mays High School and was reported on Valentine's Day. Officials said that the crime happened shortly after the school dismissed its students, at around 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Then, an unknown vehicle started to fire shots in the high school's lower campus parking lot.
In a statement, the school district said that Atlanta Public Schools Police Department and Atlanta Fire Rescue personnel immediately responded to the shooting. It added that all of the victims were transported to the hospital and were confirmed to have non-life-threatening injuries.
Law enforcement officials said that three 17-year-old boys and one 18-year-old man were the victims of the sudden gunfire. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta Public Schools Police Chief Ronald Applin, and Atlanta Police Maj. Ralph Woolfolk spoke to the media on Wednesday night, as per 11Alive.
Woolfolk noted that after the shooting, officials were able to track down a vehicle not far from the high school and detain three individuals inside. They included a 35-year-old woman, a 17-year-old girl, and another male.
Dickens said that they were working on interviewing students of the Mays High School to try and determine what had happened. Woolfolk added that they have already talked to roughly 100 students and had more than a dozen left to interview.
The Atlanta mayor added that he was shocked and heartbroken when he learned of the news of the shooting at his alma mater. He said that he was very sorry for the young people who were affected by the crime.
Despite the detentions and interviews, officials have not yet filed any charges in relation to the incident, and information regarding the people involved has not been released to the public. All after-school activities were immediately canceled following the shooting, according to Fox5Atlanta.
Prioritizing Student Safety and Security
The school district said that they were prioritizing the safety and security of the students and staff, adding that classes were expected to resume on Thursday. Dickens argued that in this modern time, where young people can have access to a gun, is concerning and dangerous.
The incident comes as parking lots are the most common location for school shootings based on the K-12 School Shooting Database. This is a research project that tracks instances in which a gun is fired or brandished on school property.
Last year, there were 346 instances in which a gun was drawn or fired on a campus, leading to the deaths of 71 people and the injury of another 249, said the New York Times.
The latest shooting also occurred on the sixth anniversary of the Parkland shooting, which happened on Feb. 14, 2018. At the time, a 19-year-old gunman entered Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and proceeded to kill 17 people and injure 17 others. Local officials considered that particular crime to be the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.
