OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — A police officer confronted an armed student at a Wisconsin high school Tuesday morning and both were wounded, police said, in the second such shooting at a school in the state in as many days.
The latest shooting happened at Oshkosh West High School. The student and the officer have been taken to hospitals, Oshkosh police said. Police did not specify what type of weapon the student had.
The Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation is leading the case.
The school was locked down. Police said parents would be able to reunite with their children later at Perry Tipler Middle school.
Stephanie Carlin, who is the mother of a sophomore and a senior at Oshkosh West and a school board member, told The Associated Press that one of her sons texted her to say, “it was crazy,” but that both of them are safe.
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“As a parent, it’s terrifying,” Carlin said. It’s a parent’s “worst nightmare.”
Carlin referred questions to school board president Barbara Herzog, who did not immediately respond to a call and email seeking comment.
Just before 11 a.m., school buses were lined up outside the school and streets were blocked off. Several squad cars, many of them with lights still flashing, were parked outside, with officers manning the barricades blocking the street.
Oshkosh West has about 1,700 students in grades 9-12.
Tuesday’s shooting in Oshkosh, a town of about 67,000 people, was about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Monday’s shooting in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha. A police officer responding to a situation at Waukesha South High School shot an armed male student in a classroom. Officials say that student pointed a handgun at officers. The 17-year-old boy was wounded and is in custody in stable condition. No officers or other students were injured, Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said.
That shooting happened after another student told a school resource officer that a classmate had a handgun, Jack said. He said the resource officer went to the classroom to confront the teen and move other students in the room to safety. Authorities have not said if other students were in the classroom during the ensuing standoff.
The officer who shot the student is an 11-year veteran of the Waukesha Police Department, Jack said. Police have not said whether the student ever fired his weapon. Police said the shooting was an isolated incident and that they are not seeking any other suspects.
School shootings have occasionally shone a spotlight on the response by guards and school resource officers. Armed school resource officers have rarely prevented a school shooting.
Last year, armed guards at three high-profile school shootings — Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; and Santa Fe High School in Texas — were unable to stop the rampage.
