Shooting that injured 4 at California school 'not intentional,' 12-year-old girl booked on gun charge



LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles police spokesman says a middle-school shooting that injured four children Thursday morning was accidental.

Spokesman Josh Rubenstein says the 12-year-old girl arrested in Thursday's shooting was being booked on a charge of negligent discharge of a firearm on school grounds.

Twelve-year-old Jordan Valenzuela, a classmate, tells The Associated Press that he talked to her just after the shooting.

He says she was sobbing and kept repeating, "I didn't mean it." He says she told him that the gun was in her backpack and that it accidentally went off when she dropped the bag.

The shooting left one teenager critically wounded and three other children injured.

Two students — a 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy — were found with gunshot wounds and transported to local hospitals, according to authorities. The boy, who was shot in the head, was transported in critical condition, said Capt. Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The female victim had a gunshot wound to the wrist and was in fair condition.

Three other patients — ages 11, 12 and a 30-year-old female staffer — were taken to hospitals for treatment.

Emergency personnel from several agencies responded to the middle school, located in the 1500 block of West Second Street, after receiving reports of a possible shooting inside a classroom shortly before 9 a.m., according to Los Angeles School Police Department Chief Steven Zipperman.

The shooting took place in a mixed-grade class at the middle school, which is located on the campus of Belmont High School, not far from downtown Los Angeles.

Two of the injured had "graze wounds," according to an official at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center, where four of the victims are being treated. All four patients at the facility are expected to make a full recovery, including one who is in the Intensive Care Unit.