California shooting: student had 'hit list' of targets

A 16-year-old who opened fire at a California high school had a "hit list" of alleged bullies he wanted to shoot. He was talked out of his rampage by a teacher police said on Thursday. 

Concerned parents listen to Taft Police Chief Ed Whiting after a shooting at Taft Union High School in Taft, California. Photo: REUTERS

The gunman, who has not been formally identified, was reportedly suspended last year after producing a list of classmates he wanted to kill because they taunted him at school.  He walked into a class at Taft Union High School on Thursday morning and shot one of the students on his list with a 12-gauge shotgun. The teenage victim is in critical but stable condition in hospital.

Ryan Heber, the class's teacher, engaged the shooter in conversation and allowed the other 27 students to escape out the backdoor. Mr Heber was joined by Kim Lee Fields, a campus supervisor, and the two staff talked the gunman into lowering the weapon.

"They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, 'I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that he wanted to shoot," said Sheriff Donny Youngblood.
"The heroics of these two people goes without saying," the sheriff added.

Sheriff Youngblood said the suspect, who is still being interrogated, alleged the two students he targeted had bullied him for more than a year.
"Certainly he believed that the two people he targeted had bullied him, in his mind. Whether that occurred or not we don't know yet," he said.

The teenager apparently hatched the plan the night before and came into school with his brother's shotgun and pockets stuffed with ammunition. Surveillance video shows him trying to conceal the gun as he nervously enters the school through a side entrance shortly after classes began.
The rural high school usually has an armed police officer on campus but a severe snowstorm has stopped the officer from coming into work.  Hope Garcia, a fellow student, told CNN: "He had a hit list of people he  wanted to kill. Last year he wasn't in school, he was kicked out because of it."

The wounded student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield and was listed in stable but critical condition Thursday evening.  Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl suffered minor injuries during the scramble to flee when she fell over a table.

The attack there came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, then killed himself.
That shooting prompted President Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.