A 15-year-old boy opened fire with a handgun in his high school in western Kentucky on Tuesday, killing two classmates and wounding 12 others before being arrested, Reuters reports. The shooting began shortly before 8 a.m. CST at Marshall County High School in Benton, Ky., about 130 miles northwest of Nashville, Tn., said the Kentucky State Police and Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin. The bloodshed was the latest outbreak of gun violence that has become a regular occurrence at schools and college campuses across the U.S. over the past several years.
Fourteen students were struck by gunfire, and two of them were fatally wounded. One, a 15-year-old girl, died at the scene, and a 15-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a hospital trauma center, Bevin said. Five of the 12 surviving wounded students were taken to the same trauma center, and another five students suffered non-gunshot injuries. Police said the violence erupted when the 15-year-old suspect walked into the school armed with a handgun and started shooting. The governor said the youth was apprehended at the scene “in a nonviolent way.” No further details of the circumstances were immediately divulged. None of the students involved were being publicly identified.