2 Killed in Shooting at Missouri High School

St. Louis Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, October 24, 2022.

ST. LOUIS –

A woman and a teenage girl were killed Monday morning in a shooting inside a St. Louis high school, authorities said. The gunman was also killed in the shooting, police said, and at least five others were taken to hospitals with injuries.

At a news conference, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said the injuries ranged from gunshot wounds to shrapnel wounds. Sack said the gunman was about 20 years old and hasn’t been positively identified.

St. Louis Public Schools said on Twitter that the shooter was “quickly stopped” by police.

The shooting just after 9 a.m. at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School forced students to barricade doors and huddle in classroom corners, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety.

Sack said security officials initially became alarmed when the shooter tried to get into the locked school building. He declined to say how the man got inside, armed with what he described as a long gun.

Officers “ran to that gunfire, located that shooter and engaged that shooter in an exchange of gunfire,” killing him, Sack said.

Sack declined to name the victims and did not say if the woman who was killed was a teacher.

One student, 16-year-old Taniya Gholston, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch she was in a room when the shooter entered.

“All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” Gholston said. “And I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed. But we saw blood on the floor.”

Parents were urged to pick up their children at Gateway STEM High School.

Central Visual and Performing Arts High School is a magnet school specializing in visual art, musical art and performing art. The district website says the school’s “educational program is designed to cre­ate a nurturing environment where students receive a quality academic and artistic education that prepares them to compete successfully at the post-secondary level or perform competently in the world of work.”