They say the 14-year-old girl, a freshman, meant to shoot her step-brother, then herself. Inside her backpack, she carried a Kahr model CW9, 9mm semi-automatic handgun and 18 rounds of ammunition.
Advertisement
In a statement issued Tuesday, Chief Russell Scown of the Alpine Police Department says the girl’s plan was foiled when a 17-year-old junior walked into the girls’ restroom at the school where the freshman girl was arming herself Thursday.
A 14-year-old freshman shot and injured a female student at Alpine High School in West Texas just before 9 a.m. Thursday.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he’s monitoring developments in the deadly shooting at the West Texas high school and promises to provide support for law enforcement agencies investigating the case. The 17-year-old junior entered the restroom and caught the 14-year-old girl with the handgun, which, police said, was aimed at the 17-year-old girl.
According to police, the 14-year-old female shooter walked into a women’s restroom in the school located across from the band hall.
The junior ducked and ran away, but took a bullet to her lower body, police said.
She then turned the gun on herself and died of a gunshot wound to her head.
Police have not released the identities of the shooter, her step-brother or the 17-year-old victim.
Despite earlier media reports that the young girl had been a victim of bullying since transferring to the area a few months earlier, the interviews and other evidence collected at the scene have left the police to conclude that bullying was not a factor in the shooting. Almost all 290 high school students were interviewed as part of the investigation into the shooting.
Scown did not say why the girl targeted her stepbrother or how investigators learned of her plans. “The actions of this young lady, although unintentional, thwarted a much deeper tragedy”.
Advertisement
In the confusion that followed the shooting, numerous law enforcement officers rushed to the scene and a USA marshal accidentally shot a Homeland Security agent, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson said last week.
