Gary, Indiana --
A Student was standing with other students waiting for
class. A former student put a gun to the victims head and shot, while
other students watched in horror.
Police
and ATF agents stand outside the Lew Wallace High
School in Gary, Indiana after a student was shot and
killed in front of the school March 30, 2000. The
suspected gunman, a 17-year-old former student, was
arrested a few blocks away at a relatives home.
Lew Wallace
High School -Friday March 30, 2001 - A 16-year-old
high school student waiting for the school doors to open was shot dead by a
former student on Friday, in the latest act of violence in and around U.S.
schools, authorities said.
Police said the victim, an above-average student at Lew Wallace High
School with no disciplinary problems, was targeted by a 17-year-old suspect
[Assessment
Training for Early Warning Signs] who pulled out a gun and
shot him in the head as other students standing alongside.
The suspected gunman, who was expelled from the school last year for
failing to attend class, was unarmed when apprehended a few blocks away at a
relative's home and was being questioned by police.
``It appears that he was targeted because ... the suspect shot the
student and walked away,'' Gary Schools Superintendent Mary Guinn said. ``If
there had been a desire to shoot someone else he would have.''
Police said there have been two or three shootings in and around Lew
Wallace High School in recent years, including the fatal shooting of a
pregnant student at a football game four years ago.
Gary, a city of more than 100,000 near Chicago, has a reputation for high
crime and high poverty rates. It had the top per capita murder rate in the
United States in the early 1990s, although the number of murders has fallen
by half in recent years.
Nonetheless, the Glen Park neighborhood surrounding the school has seen
its share of crime, local activist Dena Holland-Neal said.
School shootings have increased in the United States in recent years,
although most of the shootings have been in suburban school districts and
not at urban schools.
Since a deadly attack at a school in Santee, California, on March 5,
there have been a number of threats to schools.
In Santee, a 15-year-old student allegedly killed two classmates, the
worst incident of U.S. school violence since two teenagers killed 15 people,
including themselves, at Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999.
Last Thursday an 18-year-old opened fire at his school in El Cajon,
California, injuring at least 10 people.
(See
theLockOutViolenceEverydayCampaign
- A community violence prevention program).
(501)246-8835
Police
and ATF agents stand outside the Lew Wallace High
School in Gary, Indiana after a student was shot and
killed in front of the school March 30, 2000. The
suspected gunman, a 17-year-old former student, was
arrested a few blocks away at a relatives home.