Latest: Officials Say Assistant Principal Tackled Shooter
HARRISBURG, S.D. (AP) — The latest developments in a South Dakota school shooting that injured a high school principal. All times local:
12:55 p.m.
Authorities say a shooting at a South Dakota high school may have turned out far worse if not for the intervention of an assistant principal.
The shooting at Harrisburg High School happened at about 10 a.m. Authorities say a student got into a dispute with the principal in the principal’s office, pulled a gun and shot the principal in the arm.
Sioux Falls Police Officer Sam Clemens says Assistant Principal Ryan Rollinger tackled the student and held him down with help from athletic director Joe Struwe.
Principal Kevin Lein suffered what’s been called a flesh wound.
Authorities say they don’t know what may have caused the dispute. They say a suspected shooter was in custody and no students were reported hurt.
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12:40 p.m.
A senior student at a South Dakota high school says her principal came onto the intercom to speak to the schools minutes after authorities say he was shot by a student.
Eighteen-year-old Aanna Okerlund says she was in college algebra when one of her classmates ran into the room to tell the class he had seen a student with a gun.
Okerlund says principal Kevin Lein came onto the intercom shortly afterward to tell students there was a school-wide lockdown. She says Lein later told students by intercom that he had been shot “but was fine.”
She says students were crying and shaking in the corner of the classroom while they waited for news.
Okerlund says the incident is “surreal.” She says she has gone to Harrisburg public schools her entire life and it’s always been a safe environment.
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11:30 a.m.:
The principal of a South Dakota high school was shot and lightly wounded Wednesday in a shooting at the school. Authorities said a suspected shooter was in custody and no students were reported hurt.
Harrisburg High School Principal Kevin Lein suffered a flesh wound in the morning attack, Superintendent James Holbeck told local media outlets.
The suspected shooter is believed to be a student and was in custody, Lincoln County Deputy State’s Attorney Ross Wright said. He said Lein was in stable condition.
District administrative assistant Tracy Heiden said all students were safe, but the school was locked down. Parents were asked to stay away, but a handful of parents had gathered outside one entrance. Access to the school from a main thoroughfare was shut off, with a sheriff’s deputy standing guard nearby with a rifle.
Harrisburg is about 10 miles south of Sioux Falls.
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