TAFT, California — The 16-year-old boy had allegedly wounded the teenager he claimed had bullied him, fired two more rounds at students fleeing their first-period science class, then faced teacher Ryan Heber. “I don't want to shoot you,” he told the popular teacher, who was trying to coax the teen into giving up the shotgun he still held. Recounting the suspect's words, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said the confrontation was enough of a distraction to give 28 students time to escape their classroom Thursday at a California high school. The violence came just minutes after administrators had announced new lockdown safety procedures prompted by the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, where a gunman last month massacred 20 children and six women before killing himself. Minutes before the California shooting happened, the teachers “were giving us protocol because of what happened in Connecticut,” said student Oscar Nuno, who was across campus from the science building at Taft Union High School when an announcer on the PA system said the school was under lock down “and it was not a drill.” — AP
