Tragedy leaves student brain dead

A student wounded in a deadly US school shooting was declared brain dead, authorities said, after one student was killed and three others injured when the teenager identified as T.J. Lane opened fire in the cafeteria at a suburban Cleveland high school.

Russell King Jr, 17, was one of five students injured when the suspect began shooting at Chardon High School. Student Daniel Parmertor died hours after the shooting.

A student who saw the attack up close said it appeared that the gunman targeted a group of students sitting together and that the one who was killed was gunned down while trying to duck under the cafeteria table.

Mr Lane’s family is mourning “this terrible loss for their community,” attorney Robert Farinacci said.

An education official said the suspected shooter is a Lake Academy student, not a student at Chardon High. Students may have been referred to the alternative school because of academic or behavioural problems.

The FBI said the suspect was arrested near his car half a mile from Chardon. He was not immediately charged.

Teachers locked down their classrooms as they had been trained to do during drills, and students took cover as they waited for the all-clear in this town of 5,100 people, 48 kilometres from Cleveland. One teacher was said to have dragged a wounded student into his classroom to protect him. Another chased the gunman out of the building, police said.

Fifteen-year-old Danny Komertz, who witnessed the shooting, said Mr Lane was known as an outcast who had apparently been bullied. But others disputed that.

“Even though he was quiet, he still had friends,” said Tyler Lillash, 16. “He was not bullied.”

Mr Farinacci, representing Mr Lane and his family, told WKYC-TV that Mr Lane “pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about”.

Long before official word came of the attack, parents learned of the bloodshed from students via text message and mobile phone and thronged the streets around the school, anxiously awaiting word on their children.

“I looked up and this kid was pointing a gun about 10 feet (three metres) away from me to a group of four kids sitting at a table,” Danny said. He said the gunman fired two shots quickly, and students scrambled for safety. One of them was “trying to get underneath the table, trying to hide, protecting his face”.