Shots rang out at approximately 3:17 pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, as students were being dismissed from the June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco. Four students were shot in the school’s parking lot, San Francisco Police Officer Carlos Manfredi told CNN.
Three 15-year-old male students and a 15-year-old female student were struck by gunfire, police said, where they were taken to a local hospital and are currently recovering, The Los Angeles Times reports.
Bullet marks left after shooting @ June Jordan HS #SF pic.twitter.com/NKTQUA7qht
— Lisa Amin Gulezian (@LisaAminABC7) October 19, 2016
Officers who responded to the scene thought that they had arrived at an active shooting scene, because they spotted the injured students inside the school, Officer Manfredi said. The officers began to search for the shooter, since they thought the suspect was still in the school.
According to CNN, the police cleared each room in the school, and approximately an hour later, the lockdown at the school was lifted.
According to CNN affiliate KRON, police are now searching for the suspected shooter, and three other males who accompanied the shooter. According to CNN, it is unclear whether the four male suspects, who were wearing dark hoodies and jeans, fled on foot or in a getaway car. It is suspected that the shooter was targeting the female student, but right now nobody knows what the motive might have been.
A 4th victim walked into #SanFranciscoGeneral Hospital with non-life threatening injuries related to this incident.
— San Francisco Police (@SFPD) October 19, 2016
The San Francisco Unified School District has said that the shooting was “an isolated incident outside of the school building where one student was being targeted by outsiders.”
“I need to state emphatically that this isolated event, although awful, should not be viewed as a negative reflection on the school,” Myong Leigh, the district interim superintendent, said.
“We deeply appreciate the educators and students at June Jordan School for Equity and will proudly stand by them through this disturbing, but temporary, challenge,” Leigh said.
Classes resumed as normal at the high school on Wednesday.