Update 12:51 PST: Based on a news conference provide by Kern County and Taft police, here is the sequence of events this morning:
- The shooter is a 16 y.o. male who did not attend the start of class this morning.
- The shooter was seen walking on campus carrying a shotgun. The person who saw him called 911 which initiated a police response even before the shooting took place.
- The shooter entered a class he was a student in and shot one 16 y.o. boy.
- The teacher in the class is being called a hero for talking to the shooter while students fled the classroom through a back door.
- The shooter reportedly attempted to shoot a 2nd student who he named but the teacher apparently prevented it.
- As the teacher was talking to the shooter an unarmed campus supervisor approached and began talking to him as well.
- The shooter eventually put the gun down at which point police had reached the scene and arrested him.
- The teacher was injured in the head by buckshot but declined treatment at the scene.
- Taft Union High usually has an armed School Resource Office on campus but he was not there today because he was snowed in at home.
- Police have no information on where the shooter got the gun used in the incident.
- Finally, the media on scene claims that multiple parents have told them that a student at Taft Union was suspended last year for making a “hit list.” Some are claiming that individual is the shooter in today’s incident but police have not offered any confirmation of this.
[End update]
An ABC affiliate in Bakersfield, CA was first to learn of a shooting at Taft Union High School this morning around 9 a.m.
One student and one teacher were shot. The student was airlifted to a local hospital. The teacher was not seriously injured and refused treatment. The shooter is believed to be a student and is said to have used a shotgun in the attack.
According to a pdf document posted on the Taft Union High website, security at the school includes “Two
campus supervisors and a uniform deputy sheriff (the school resource officer).” One report says a SWAT team was sent to the high school to search for the shooter. He was placed in police custody by 9:20 a.m.
After the incident, students were directed to the nearby football field where there parents can arrange to pick them up.
Word of the shooting broke as some cable news outlets were featuring a statement by Vice President Biden on a White House push for additional gun control in the wake of the Newtown, CT shooting last month.