This afternoon around 1:50 pm EST at Price Middle School in southeast Atlanta, a 14-year-old student was shot and another was taken into custody by authorities. Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis and Police Chief George Turner said at a news conference that multiple gunshots were fired from a small-caliber handgun outside the main school building. Telvis Douglas, the one student that was struck, was only grazed by a bullet on the back of his neck. His injury is not major and he is expected to be released from the hospital relatively soon. Douglas and the shooter knew each other and police have said the shooting was motivated by a previous dispute between them but did not comment on the specific nature of the conflict.
Frightened parents, many still disturbed from the Newton Elementary school massacre that shocked the nation, rushed to the school to find their children. “All types of stuff went through my head. I’m wondering whether it was my child who got shot, is my child OK, did he see what happened?” said one mother. The school was put on lockdown for almost three hours. At 4:50 p.m., students boarded buses that were escorted by police to nearby parking lots, where they were reunited with their parents.
“Gun violence in and around our schools is simply unconscionable and must end,” Mayor Kasim Reed said in a statement. “Too many young people are being harmed, and too many families are suffering from unimaginable and unnecessary grief.”
