A middle school shooting that left two students injured in Los Angeles was the result of a semi-automatic handgun going off by accident in a 12-year-old girl’s bag, police said Saturday.
A 15-year-old boy sustained a head wound, described as a ‘graze,’ while a girl of the same age was hit in the wrist in the incident at Salvador Castro Middle School in central Los Angeles on Thursday.
Both are expected to fully recover, and Los Angeles police said they did not believe the shooting was intentional.
An 11-year-old boy, a 12-year-old girl and a 30-year-old woman “had minor abrasions to the face area, some from glass,” Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department said, adding that none of the three was struck by gunfire.
The suspect was arrested at the scene and charged in juvenile court Friday with felony counts of being a minor in possession of a firearm and having a weapon on school grounds.
The girl, who is not being identified by authorities because of her age, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, according to the District Attorney’s Office, which said it would not release any further information.
Some of her friends told reporters that she claims the gun “went off” when she dropped her backpack.
