One teenager died and another two were wounded outside their high school in the US state of Iowa Monday, in what police said appeared to have been a drive-by shooting. Des Moines police officers and fire department rescue personnel arrived at East High School in the center of the state capital around 2:48 pm (2048 GMT), the police department said in a statement.
The department had “received several calls reporting gunfire at the school, and multiple persons injured,” Sergeant Paul Parizek, a public information officer, said in the statement.
Three teenagers had been shot and were transported to hospitals. One of the victims has since died and the other two remain hospitalized, the police statement said, without giving further details on their condition.
“The gunfire appears to have come from a passing vehicle,” the statement said, adding the victims were on school property but outside the school building at the time of the shooting. East High temporarily locked down after the initial reports of the shooting, according to a tweet on the Des Moines Public Schools official account.
Des Moines police and public safety officers gave the school the all-clear to dismiss the students soon after. Potential suspects have been detained, but no charges have been filed. The police statement did not say how many suspects had been arrested or who they were.
Mass killings involving firearms are a common occurrence in the United States. Lax gun laws and the right to bear arms have repeatedly stymied attempts to clamp down on the number of weapons in circulation, despite greater controls being favored by the majority of Americans.
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