SEATTLE — Two students are dead after one of them opened fire Friday morning in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School cafeteria before turning the gun on himself, according to law enforcement sources.
Police said four other people were wounded in the 10:45 a.m. shooting.
Austin Joyner, a student at the school, said on Twitter that he saw the shooter come into the cafeteria, walk over to a table, pull out a gun and shoot students who were sitting there. Jarron Webb, 15, said the shooter was angry at a girl who would not date him, and that the girl was one of the people shot.
Students reported pandemonium in lunchroom after the shooting, with dozens rushing for doors and then jumping a fence to escape.
Freshman Austin Wright said every exit in the lunchroom was jammed with kids escaping gunfire. “I heard three gunshots and I ran.”
Four of the injured were taken by ambulance to Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. Three were in critical condition, with head injuries. A fourth, with lesser injuries, was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
At a news conference, Marysville Police Commander Robb Lamoureaux called the scene an active investigation and said police officers were going door to door to ensure that the campus was safe. They were leaving tape to mark the doors of rooms that had been cleared. Officers were finding students and staff members hiding alone or in small groups.
“We are confident that there was only one shooter and that the shooter is dead,” Lamoureaux said. He did not confirm reports of injuries. Students were reporting that the shooter was a freshman.
Some of the school’s 1,200 students were being evacuated, walking out and across the fields with their hands up. Others were being told to stay inside classrooms.
Sophomore Arlene Cortez, 16, says she locked herself in a classroom with other students for about 45 minutes before police came in.
Some were bused to the nearby Shoultes Gospel Hall, where they are being accounted for. Lamoureaux urged parents and family members of students to stay away from the scene, saying authorities would provide information on a location for them to be reunited with students.
At the church, tearful parents and students were being reunited, and hugging.
“I never thought I would be standing here after a school shooting,” said Heather Parker, whose son, Corbin, is a senior. “He’s pretty shook up. He just said ‘I’m OK.’ He was trying to calm me down.”
Adam Holston, 14, a freshman, was just leaving the lunchroom when the gunfire broke out. “Everyone just started running. I could hear the gunshots and my heart was racing and we didn’t know what was going on.”
Some ran out to the parking lot, some to the field.
“Someone opened a door and we all ran into classrooms and just stayed there.”
He said all students had been loaded on buses. His sister is a senior. He’s been texting with her and she’s OK.
“The person who everyone thinks did it was just acting normally. It didn’t seem like there was anything wrong.”
Jery Holston has two children in the school now communicating with him by cellphone. They are both OK. Adam is a freshman; Kayliegh is a senior.
Holston said Adam called him this morning yelling, “Dad, dad, hurry, someone is shooting. Please come.” He said his son ran and hid outside in the field by the stadium.
Jery was in Stanwood at the time. “I probably did a hundred miles per hour to get there. I didn’t stop for anything. My heart went into my stomach. As a father, this has been my fear since my kids have been in school, that something like this would happen.”
Ayn Dietrich-Williams, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Seattle, said agents are on their way to Marysville to offer assistance.
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