School Climate & Safety

Shooting at Seattle-Area High School: Gunman and Two Students Dead

By Evie Blad — October 24, 2014 1 min read
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Updated.


The death toll in a Washington state high school shooting last week has risen to three after a 14-year-girl who was wounded in the incident died Sunday night, the Associated Press reported. Three other students remain hospitalized; two in critical condition and one in serious condition.

The girl was the second student to die after a classmate opened fire in a cafeteria at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Wash., Friday morning. One girl was killed immediately and several others were wounded.

Witnesses said the assailant was a 14-year-old freshman, Jaylen Fryberg, who died at the scene after turning the gun on himself, the New York Times reported.

Four students were brought from the school to nearby Providence Regional Medical center, an official said in an afternoon press conference. Three of those people, who were in “very critical condition,” were rushed to emergency surgery for severe wounds, some of them head wounds, she said. The fourth patient, deemed to have less severe wounds, was transferred to another hospital for treatment.

The 2,500-student Marysville-Pilchuck High School is located about 30 miles north of Seattle.

Aerial footage from Seattle television stations showed students calmly filing out of the school in an orderly fashion following the shooting. A police spokesman said at a press conference that officers worked through the school room-by-room to evacuate students and confirm that their were no other shooters.

Hours after the shooting, many parents still waited at a nearby church to retrieve their children, who were waiting to be dismissed from classrooms, while they were on lockdown. Parents told TV reporters of whispered phone calls and text messages from their children inside the building, reassuring them that they were OK.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released a statement on the shooting Saturday:

My thoughts are with the students, educators and families at Marysville-Pilchuck High School near Seattle. Gun violence has no place anywhere, least of all at our nation's schools, and we must do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands. My Department will do everything it can to help as the Marysville community works to heal from this tragedy."

Photo: This image made from a video provided by KOMO shows student walking as emergency personnel respond after reports of a shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Wash., on Oct. 24. --KOMO/AP

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Rules for Engagement blog.