Two adults were killed and two students were injured Monday morning at an elementary school in San Bernardino in what officials are describing as a murder-suicide.
The students were airlifted to local hospital and their conditions are unknown, said San Bernardino police Lt. Vicki Cervantes.
One of the adults involved in the shooting was a teacher, according to San Bernardino Unified School District spokeswoman Maria Garcia.
“We believe this to be a murder-suicide,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan tweeted. “Happened in a class room. Two students have been transported to the hospital.”
Burguan later tweeted: “We believe the suspect is down and there’s no further threat.”
The gunfire occurred at 10:27 a.m. in a classroom at North Park Elementary School, 5378 N. H Street.
The San Bernardino County Fire Department reported multiple gunshot victims and a triage area had been set up.
“It’s a developing situation,” said Eric Sherwin, a Fire Department spokesman.
School officials said the shooting was “isolated to the campus.”
Student were evacuated to Cal State San Bernardino’s physical education building, where they can access bathrooms and water, said university spokesman Joe Gutierrez.
Parents were directed to go to Cajon High School, where officials will verify their identity before sending them to Cal State San Bernardino to pick up their children, Gutierrez said.
North Park Elementary has over 500 mostly Latino and low-income students between kindergarten and sixth grade.
Students were huddled on a field at a corner of the school’s campus on Northpark Boulevard and H Street, accompanied by teachers and guarded by law enforcement officers carrying long guns.
Anxious parents like David Zamudio gathered nearby but barriers blocked them from reaching their children. Some parents said there was confusion over where to collect their children as information circulated that they should be picked up at either Cajon High School or California State University San Bernardino.
Zamudio, the father of a six-year-old in the second grade at the school, said he lives nearby and heard helicopters overhead. He rushed to the school when his sister called saying there’d been a school shooting.
“I came because they said it was safer, more isolated. But I guess it’s not that way,” said Zamudio, who recently moved to the area from Highland.
The shooting comes as San Bernardino has seen a major increase in violence.
There were 62 slayings in San Bernardino in 2016 — a 41% increase from the year before. It was the deadliest year in the city since 1995.
The violence is an open wound on a city trying to recover from a prolonged bankruptcy and the 2015 terror attack.
Times staff writer Sonali Kohli contributed to this article.
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UPDATES:
12:05 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from parents about the shooting and details about North Park Elementary School.
This article was originally published at 10:59 a.m.