Family members of students at Northwest high school gather and wait for students to be released from the school after a shooting was reported on Sept. 10 in Omaha, Neb.Megan Nielsen/The Associated Press
Omaha police arrested a suspect about half an hour after a shooting Tuesday that critically injured a teenage boy at a high school in Nebraska’s largest city.
Families rushed to Omaha Northwest High School after the shooting was reported by the school resource officer during lunch at 12:23 p.m. Omaha Police Deputy Chief Sherie Thomas said officers from several departments quickly responded to the school and found the victim inside.
School shootings have become all too common across the country, with the most recent major one happening just last week in Georgia where two teachers and two students were killed in the town of Winder, and another teacher and eight more students were wounded. Dozens of school shootings have been reported in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings often trigger debates about gun control but little has changed in national gun laws.
Thomas said police believe the shooting was an isolated incident between two students. The 14-year-old suspect was arrested three blocks away about 30 minutes later.
Parents tearfully embraced their kids in the parking lot as the first few started to come out of the school after 1 p.m. The rest of the students were reunited with their families over the next couple of hours.
Thomas said a 15-year-old boy was critically injured in the shooting and rushed to a hospital. She said the victim was in stable condition several hours after the shooting.
One student told KETV that he was coming back to school after lunch and ran as fast as he could when he heard screams and saw people running because he didn’t want to die and the Georgia shooting was on his mind.
Two nearby Catholic high schools — Marian and Roncalli high schools — were also locked down after the shooting, but that was lifted after the arrest.
Devon DeMott told the Omaha World-Herald that he raced to the school from his home a few blocks away as soon as his son texted him there had been a shooting.
“As fatherly instinct, I jumped in the car and headed up there,” said DeMott, who was glad to see a significant police presence when he arrived.
The school district canceled all Tuesday evening activities at Northwest High and all classes on Wednesday. Students are scheduled to return Thursday.