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A Shooting at a High School in Kentucky Has Left 2 Dead & at Least 17 Injured

Caroline Pirozzolo

Two students were killed and at least 17 were injured in a shooting at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky on Tuesday, the New York Times reports.

A 15-year-old suspect, who has not been identified due to his age, was reportedly taken into custody at the scene. He has reportedly been charged with counts of murder and attempted murder, and could be tried as an adult for his horrific crimes.

According to authorities, the suspect reportedly walked into the school with a handgun at the beginning of the school day just before 8 a.m, prompting many students and teachers to run panicking out of the school and into nearby woods.

“You could see students dropping their bags and just start running, pushing past each other,” Junior Taylor Droke told CNN. “Everyone in cars started turning around and driving away. Kids were jumping the fence around the school and running through the woods. Everyone just left their bags and ran, so people had no cellphones.”

Two 15-year-olds identified later in the day as students Bailey Holt and Preston Cope were tragically killed in the shooting, and of the 17 people hospitalized for their injuries, five remained in critical condition as of Tuesday night.

The shooting at Marshall County High School happened only 24 hours after a 15-year-old girl in Italy, Texas — a small town similar in size to Benton — was shot by a classmate. Both shootings are only two of 11 recorded on school property throughout the U.S. so far in 2018 alone, the Times reports. Researchers say since 2013, school shootings happen on an average of once per week — and many fear the country is becoming numb to them as each one garners less and less national attention.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who became a gun control advocate after surviving a shooting in a grocery story in 2011, echoed these sentiments in a statement she released in response to the shooting on Tuesday, CNN says.

“The devastating news about the shooting in Kentucky this morning is the latest example, but just yesterday, while the nation’s attention was focused on the government shutdown, school shootings were also reported in Texas and Louisiana,” Giffords said. “Our nation has experienced 13 mass shootings already this year, and it’s only January. We will never accept these horrific acts of violence as routine.”

Caroline is the Evening/Weekend Editor and Style Editor at Her Campus, a senior public relations major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leather jacket enthusiast.  You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @c_pirozzolo.