Students are escorted from Berrendo Middle School following a shooting.
A student opened fire in a school in the southeastern New Mexico City of Roswell on Tuesday injuring several students, authorities said.
The shooting happened in the Berrendo Middle Schoolâ„¢s gym, where the gunman shot a 14-year-old boy twice in the face and a 13-year-old girl in the arm. The victims were rushed to a local hospital both in critical conditions.
Hospital spokesman Eric Finley said the information he obtained from the nurses treating the boy shows that he was the target of the shooter.
Odiee Carranza, an eighth grader, who witnessed the shooting, said the gunman was a boy who she thought was being bullied.
Carranza said a teacher grabbed the shooter after he fired a shot into the sky and dropped the gun,
The shooter was arrested by police and was taken in custody, a spokeswoman from the Roswell Police Department said.
Following the incident, the students were all taken to a nearby mall by bus so that parents could pick them up.
According to an investigation by the Daily Beast, one school shooting has taken place in America every two weeks on average over the past year.
A new poll found that an estimated 40 percent of households in the United States have at least one gun owner.
The Economist/YouGov poll found that about 24 percent of American adults surveyed said they personally own a gun and 15 percent said they do not personally own one but someone in their home does.
AT/HJ
Source: Press TV