ERDENHEIM – An 11th-grader brought a rifle to school in a large duffel bag and shot himself to death in a hallway Tuesday morning between classes.
No one else was injured in the 9 a.m. shooting at Springfield Township High School in Montgomery County.
The boy fired shots into the ceiling in the science-wing hallway after first period, said Michael Delaurentis, who was about 30 feet away.
“I was walking to my class,” said Delaurentis, who turned 18 on Tuesday. “I just hear ‘Get down.’ I heard shots fired into the ceiling and I saw smoke.”
A security camera showed the boy taking the gun out of bag and shooting into the ceiling, said Randall D. Hummel, the township police chief. Students in the hallway scrambled for cover, and the teenager walked to another hallway out of view, then shot himself, Hummel said.
It was an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Hummel said. He said no suicide note had yet been found.
The township police station is next door to the high school and officers were on the scene almost immediately.
Officers in the building heard a single shot and found the boy dead in the hallway, Hummel said. The student was not immediately identified.
The other students in the building were evacuated to an adjacent middle school, and all the district’s schools were locked down, said Laura Feller, a spokeswoman for the Springfield Township School District. Parents trickled to the school later Tuesday morning to pick up their children.
Nearly three months ago, a 10th-grader at the same school, just outside Philadelphia, was arrested for allegedly bringing in a loaded gun. The boy showed the gun to another student, and word soon trickled to a teacher and then a security officer, officials said. Police arrested the student after left campus on foot.
Superintendent Roseann Nyiri said officials considered installing metal detectors after that, but they felt it was an isolated incident. Instead, they decided they would try to screen for children who are potentially at risk and try to work with them.
“We’re all very much aware that even metal detectors have not deterred students from bringing guns into schools in the past,” Hummel said.
Delaurentis’ father, Michael, said: “It just makes you a little in fear of the future, and not just at this school, any school, because I don’t think any school is 100 percent secure.”