LOS ANGELES — A gun in a 10th-grader's backpack discharged Tuesday when he dropped the bag, wounding two students at a high school, including one who remained in critical condition, police said.
A 15-year-old girl with a head wound underwent hours of surgery at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Dr. Gail V. Anderson Jr said. A 15-year-old boy was in serious condition with neck and shoulder wounds.
Both teens were hit with the same bullet, Los Angeles deputy police chief Patrick Gannon said.
The student who brought the gun apologized before running to another classroom, Gannon said.
"He said I'm sorry when the gun went off. It made it appear to the teacher that it was an accident," Gannon said.
However, Los Angeles police Lt. John Pasquariello said later it was a crime to bring a gun to campus. The unidentified student was arrested and charges were pending, he said.
"We don't know exactly what happened," Pasquariello said. "Traditionally, guns don't go off without someone's finger on the trigger."
The shooting occurred in a classroom at Gardena High School, where Principal Rudy Mendoza said students were on a break at the time. The campus was locked down after the incident. Police initially reported a shooter was at large.
Student Semaj Elan, who was in an adjacent classroom when the shooting occurred, said he saw a student run out and toss a handgun by a fence then keep running.
"My friend came up to me in the classroom talking about how she almost got shot. They're gonna be traumatized by that," Elan said.
Nelda Robledo, one of the worried parents who gathered near the school, said her 16-year-old daughter texted her that students were ordered to get down on the ground or hide in a corner after the shooting.
Numerous law enforcement agencies responded to the 2,400-student campus about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
Los Angeles school district spokesman Robert Alaniz said preliminary reports from the principal and teacher said the boy dropped the bag on the floor and the gun discharged.
Shedric Porter, 14, said he was walking past the classroom at the time.
"I didn't see anything, but I heard the shot, and it was really loud," he said. "I stopped. I was scared. Then I thought it was just a book or something hitting the ground, but it was too loud for that."
Like many schools, Gardena High checks arriving students with security wands. It's unclear how the student got in with the gun in his backpack, district spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.
"We're trying to find out if the wanding is random or if every student is wanded," she said.
No district school is equipped with walkthrough metal detectors, she said.
Several parents said their children had described racial tension at the school.
"There's usually fights everyday, you're going to see blacks against whites and whites against blacks every single day," said Christy Westbrooks, whose 16-year-old daughter attends the school. "Spanish, whites, Samoans — they don't care what race."
Discipline has long been a problem at Gardena, which ranks as one of the district's lowest-performing high schools. Roughly 35 percent of students drop out.
Five years ago, more than 2,000 students were suspended, and 15 students were expelled. Those figures remained high until last year when the number of suspensions dropped to 300 and expulsions to two.
Forming a discipline committee was one of the principal's goals for this year, according to the school's website.
Frantic parents rushed to the school after hearing about the shooting. They paced nervously as they waited behind police tapes for word from their children.
"I've never heard of anything like this before," said Thomas Hill, whose 16-year-old and 18-year-old children attend the school.
Cynthia Cano, 15, said she was in a Mexican-American social studies class when an announcement was made that the school was in lockdown.
"We heard someone got shot. Everyone was freaking out a little," she said in a telephone interview from inside the campus.
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