By IVAN MORENO and GRETCHEN EHLKE Associated Press
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 just after 9 a.m., Oshkosh police spokeswoman Katherine Mann said at a news briefing. The student and the officer were taken to hospitals, but no one else was injured in the shooting, Mann said. Police will not be releasing details of the type of weapon the student was carrying, and the department of Justice is handling the investigation, she said.
"This is a big deal," Mann said. "We're not that big of a city and we know pretty much everyone in the city and we know this affects a lot of people in our community."
The Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating.
The school was locked down. Police said parents would be able to reunite with their children later at Perry Tipler Middle school. By late morning, parents were gathered at the middle school, waiting for their children.
An Oshkosh West student identified only as Evelyn told WLUK-TV that she was in class when she heard screaming and her teacher walked out.
"And then, like, after two minutes she ran back into the classroom and she was like, 'Everybody needs to evacuate right now!' And then we all ran out of the class and then we saw everybody from out school running to across the street."
After reuniting with her mother at the nearby middle school, Evelyn said: "They told us they were going to tell us what was happening, but they never did."
A senior identified only as Josh told the Journal Sentinel that he heard the gunshots.
"I was walking in the hall, and a teacher shoved me into a classroom, and we started barricading the doors, and we all huddled in the corner, and there were gunshots," he said.
The Rev. John Seelman, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church across the street from the school, says he saw one person being transported from the school in a wheelchair who was taken away in an ambulance, and another who was carried out on a stretcher.
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 her sons were safe.
"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 city 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.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said the two shootings reinforced the need to identify troubled students and get them the mental health services they need to prevent violence before it occurs. Kaul also renewed his call for the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass a universal gun background check bill and a "red flag" law that would empower judges to take guns from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others.
The state Justice Department's office of school safety was working with both schools in Oshkosh and Waukesha to provide them with any services they may need, Kaul said. He also said if other schools with safety upgrade needs to contact his agency.
"These are really tragic incidents but it's also true we have seen incidents where there has been mass tragedy," Kaul said. "I feel really sorry for our kids that they have to go to school in this environment."
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.
___
This story has been corrected to show the investigating agency is called the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, not the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation.
___
Ehlke reported from Milwaukee. Associated Press writer Jeff Baenan, Amy Forliti and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; and Scott Bauer and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.
Other articles from Hispanic Outlook:
Diversify Or Decline
Most people believe diversity in our society is a worthy goal. It seems a particularly sensible one for a nation established and built by individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds. But how to achieve and sustain it?...A bit of history. For centuries the privileged class took steps to ensure their success and those of their male offspring. The well-established old boy network was in many ways an efficient system that worked for those who ran it, primarily WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Admission to college, employment offers and promotion opportunities were heavily influenced by who you knew, who recommend you. But the well-oiled network had fatal flaws. It was insular, extremely restrictive and self-serving. It was great for those connected males, and in the past, males were the preferred gender for sure. But what about everybody else? Vast numbers of under-served ethnic, religious or national groups didn’t have a chance. The playing field was painfully uneven. The cards were stacked against hundreds of thousands of Americans if not millions be it for education or employment opportunities. Finally, in the 1960s affirmative action was…
Judging Good-Looking Employees As Bad
(AP)(THE CONVERSATION) Beautiful people tend to have a lot more luck in the work world. Research has shown people deemed attractive get paid more, receive better job evaluations and are generally more employable. It’s even been shown that good-looking CEOs bring better stock returns for their companies. In part, this may be because companies believe consumers are more likely to buy things from beautiful employees, which is perhaps why retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch have used looks as criteria in their hiring process. Abercrombie says it stopped doing that in 2015. There’s some evidence, however, that this worker “beauty premium” may be wearing off – at least when it comes to employees who interact with consumers. In television commercials, for example, retailers and other companies are increasingly using real people – with all their physical flaws – rather than photoshopped models to give their brands an “authentic” feel. Research several colleagues and I conducted recently suggests that companies may be wise to...
New Grads Reveal A Confidence Gender Gap
For perhaps the first and only time in a person’s professional life where they are competing in a somewhat level playing field is as a freshly minted college graduate. If your grades are comparable and you are competing in the same field as your fellow graduate, you should be just as confident about landing a coveted job as he or she might be. But a study of recent college graduates reveals that this is not necessarily so. You point of view, it turns out, is very much affected by what gender you are. The survey, conducted as part of the Cengage Student Opportunity Index, shows that while recent college graduates feel good about their job prospects, women are much less confident than men when it comes to salary expectations. Women are also significantly less optimistic than men about the country’s economic outlook, with a majority reporting they feel the country is on the wrong track. And these concerns are not unreasonable. The fact that we are a society that is ideologically divided over the question of equal pay for equal work and statistics that…
2 Physicians Personalize Vaccine Debate
In the year 2000, the national vaccination rate was 90% to 95%. Measles was declared officially eliminated in this country. However, since that time an anti-vaccine movement has sprung up internationally, which has lowered the percentage of children vaccinated at levels that are alarming the medical community. Earlier this year, there was a surge of measles cases in Washington State. The vaccination rate across Clark County, Wash. was 78%, but some schools in the area have had rates under 40%, according to the Clark County Public Health website. Washington State legislators introduced bills to deny parents refusing to vaccinate their children for personal and philosophical reasons. Washington was one of only 17 states that allowed for that exemption. The bills, supporters explained, was to prevent a full-blown epidemic in the Pacific Northwest. After a contentious debate and hearings, the bills were passed and signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. What follows are the views of two Physicians who have been personally touched by...
Using Crowdsourcing To Diagnose Patients
It’s no surprise that the internet has changed the practice of Medicine. TeleMedicine is now being recognized by major insurance carriers and medical facilities as a viable option for Patients. Physicians routinely consult and exchange files on line. Patients can access their medical files and history through laboratory and hospital websites. But now crowdsourcing has taken Medicine to a whole new level. A new series on Netflix explores how Physicians can harness the power of the internet to better treat their Patients and provide a window into the entire diagnosis process. The series, “Diagnosis,” explores the life-changing impact of receiving a diagnosis for individuals who’ve been searching for answers, and the healing that comes with connecting with others who can empathize with their experiences. Based on Dr. Lisa Sanders’ column in The New York Times Magazine, “Diagnosis” follows various Patients on their respective journeys toward finding a diagnosis, and potentially a cure, for their mysterious illnesses. By combining the power of…
Place your job ad in our classified page on the HO print & digital Edition
