Two 15-year-old girls fatally shot at Phoenix-area school
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Phoenix police officer, center, tried to give instructions to parents waiting to board buses to reunite with their children, today, in Glendale, Ariz. after two students died in a shooting at Independence High School in the Phoenix suburb. The danger at the campus was over, police said, as worried parents crowded stores nearby to await word on their children.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A mother and daughter reunite today in Glendale, Ariz., after two students were shot and killed at Independence High School in the Phoenix suburb. The danger at the campus was over, police said, as worried parents crowded stores nearby to meet their children.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Parents and students reunite today in Glendale, Ariz. after two teens were shot this morning at Independence High School in the Phoenix suburb. Two 15-year-old girls were shot once at the school, but it was not clear what led up to their deaths, Glendale Officer Tracey Breeden told reporters. Authorities were not looking for anyone else, and a gun was found near the bodies, she said.
GLENDALE, Ariz. » Two 15-year-old girls died today in a shooting at a suburban Phoenix high school that initially caused panic among parents who could not reach their children but later emerged as a murder-suicide.
Police announced that a suicide note was found at the shooting scene near the cafeteria area of Independence High School in Glendale. They said the girls each were shot once, were declared dead at the scene and a weapon was found near the bodies.
“Information gathered by detectives reveal the two girls were very close friends, appeared to also be in a relationship,” Glendale police spokeswoman Tracey Breeden said in a statement this afternoon.
Breeden said it is believed nobody witnessed the shooting.
Both teens have been identified, but Breeden said “their names will not be confirmed or released at this time by the police department due to their juvenile status.”
Hours before the lockdown of the school was lifted, hundreds of worried parents crowded the parking lots of nearby discount and convenience stores.
One woman gnawed on her fingernails as she spoke on a cellphone, while another had tears streaming down her face. Other parents chain-smoked as they waited for news.
Cheryl Rice said she went to a store after a friend called about the shooting and asked about Rice’s 15-year-old daughter. But the girl called to say she was safe as Rice arrived at the store.
She said it was horrible waiting for word about her child.
“You don’t know if it’s your daughter or not. You don’t know who’s being bullied. You don’t know who is being picked on. You don’t know anything. It could be anybody,” Rice said.
Lanie Walter, who is a senior at the school, heard ambulances on her way to campus but didn’t think much of it until her first class was locked down.
When she called her parents to tell them she was safe, “my mom was actually really relieved because she was watching it on the news,” she said.
Parents were bused to the school to be reunited with their children. Some cut through a nearby field as they rushed toward their kids in emotional reunions. Other students who got permission from their parents left campus on their own.
The Glendale Union High School District alerted parents to the shooting through emails and automatic phone calls and released information on social media, Superintendent Brian Capistran said.
Students typically are not allowed to use their cellphones during lockdowns, but as calls from parents flooded the district, officials asked teachers to have students call family, Capistran said.
Social workers and counselors will be available to students and staff when school resumes Tuesday, the superintendent said.
Minnie Kramer, mother of a 15-year-old student, said she rushed out of work when she got a text from her son right after the shooting, telling her that he was OK.
As she waited to be reunited with her son, Kramer said she worried about whether any of his friends were harmed.
“I know that my son is OK, but, emotionally, you don’t know what it does, especially at 15, especially if it’s someone he knew,” Kramer said.
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Associated Press photographer Matt York and writer Samantha Shotzbarger contributed to this report.
16 responses to “Two 15-year-old girls fatally shot at Phoenix-area school”
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Republicans have to decide whether to support the right to bear arms for profit or protect our citizens with gun control?
Only the law abiding citizens adhere to the strict gun control laws already on the books. The unlawful people will get guns no matter what the law says. I’d rather have a legally purchased gun to protect my family against the unlawfuls…
Too early to know exactly what happened but…
What if that weapon was owned by a law abiding citizen whose son or daughter decided to take it to school and kill someone with it? If that’s the case, where is your “no matter what”? Is the owner an “unlawful” person?
People on both sides of the argument can agree that we can and should restrict gun purchases to those who undergo a more thorough background check than that which we have now. But it seems that instead of working together on a compromise, the anti-gun side won’t even work on that.
Well, a background check would have zero relevance with regard to a teenage shooter.
Just another day in gun crazy USA!!!
Just another day in a culture which breeds alienation and has “privacy laws” which shields crazies from being investigated and locked up.
You be first. Install a camera in your house and route your internet connection through some federal agency. Sure, you might have to spend some time explaining to some guy in a cheap suit and sunglasses why you visited the site you visited but, heck: at least you’ll never feel alienated.
yup..this is a deeply troubled urban school
You can’t know enough from this article alone to condemn the whole school, but the girls certainly were “troubled”.
lack of information or understanding never stops allie from commenting
your comments are deeply troubling and so is your face
allie, your comments are a waste, no substance just rechewing what is known..
This may have been murder suicide . prayers to the familys
Murder/ suicide, suicide note and some ‘close’ relationship between the two girls. Sounds like a Romeo and Juliet situation where either the families forbade the relationship between the two and/or the two were relentlessly taunted by classmates ‘bullies’ because of their relationship? Also was the problem due to same sex pairing and/or racial lines?
There was a similar situation on TV show ER last season, but with a happier ending. Condolences to the families.