(Reuters) – A shooting outside a public school for special-needs youth in suburban Minneapolis on Tuesday left one student dead and another badly wounded, while authorities searched for suspects who immediately fled the scene, according to police.
Authorities provided few details of circumstances surrounding the bloodshed and took no questions from reporters at a news briefing afterward.
The two students were gunned down at about noon on a sidewalk near the front entrance to the South Education Center in Richfield, Minnesota, a city of about 37,000 residents adjacent to Minneapolis, police chief Jay Henthorne told reporters.
Both victims were taken to an area hospital, where one died of his injuries and the other was listed in critical condition, Henthorne said.
“This is a tragic day in the city of Richfield,” he said.
The suspects made a quick getaway after the shooting, Henthorne said, without offering any information about how many assailants were at large or the motive.
Police searched the school and surrounding area and “determined that no further threat existed” before lifting a precautionary lockdown of the education center and other schools in the vicinity, the chief said.
The Richfield school center provides special educational programs for about 200 students ranging in age from pre-kindergarten through 21, according to Sandra Lewandowsky, superintendent for the area school district.
Television station WCCO reported that the same school was placed under lockdown in September after a student was found with a handgun. That student was taken into custody and nobody was hurt, WCCO said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Stephen Coates)
