A student was killed and a second was critically injured Wednesday in what was called an accidental shooting at a high school in Birmingham, Alabama, authorities said.
The shooting occurred at Huffman High School, in east Birmingham, Police Chief Orlando Wilson said. The students were rushed to University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital, where one of them, a 17-year-old boy, was pronounced dead, Wilson said.
The other student, a 17-year-old girl, was listed as critical but stable.
Wilson said the incident was being treated as an “accidental shooting at this particular time.” He later added, “This is not a situation where someone came in and randomly fired from the outside.”
Classes had let out for the day, Birmingham City Schools said in a brief statement. But many students and faculty were still on campus for after-school activities at the time, and the school was briefly locked down as police responded, it said.
Wilson wouldn’t discuss how two people could have been shot by accident, but he said, “This should not happen in schools.”
Asked whether students should feel safe returning to classes on Thursday, he said: “Tomorrow, we will be here. Tomorrow, we will have police here.
“Tomorrow, we will ensure that this school will be open,” he said.
No other details were immediately available.
