At least 2 people shot at Virginia high school, police responding to ‘major incident’

FBI and the local police have responded to an alleged shooting at Heritage High School in Newport News, Virginia. Two schools have been put on lockdown amid reports of two people shot, but expected to survive.

Newport News police reported a shooting at Heritage just before noon local time on Monday. There were initially multiple reports of wounded and even killed, citing radio traffic from the site.

A male and a female, both 17, were shot after “some kind of altercation” in the school cafeteria, Police Chief Steve Drew told reporters. The male was struck in the head, and a female in the lower leg. Two more people were hospitalized, one with a sprained or broken arm and another for breathing issues due to asthma.

“Two people were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds that are not believed to be life-threatening,” police said just after 1 pm. Any reports of active shooters at other schools in the city are “false,” they added.

The suspect has not been taken into custody, and police are looking at evidence recovered on school grounds to make an identification, Chief Drew said.

Both Heritage and the nearby Achievable Dream Academy were placed on lockdown, local media reported. Police said that Heritage students were evacuated to the nearby outdoor tennis courts, where parents could pick them up.

The FBI field office in nearby Norfolk is assisting the Newport News police. Virginia State Police troopers are also helping the NNPD in “searching every inch” of the school to find evidence and any students or staff that may have stayed behind.

Heritage is a public school established in 1996, and is home to the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) magnet program. The vast majority of students are African American.

Newport News is the fifth-largest city in Virginia, with around 180,000 residents. It is part of the Hampton Roads metroplex, west of Hampton and north of Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. 

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