By Christine Clarridge
The Seattle Times
One person is dead and at least three others have been wounded in a shooting at a high school south of Spokane.
The Spokesman-Review reported Wednesday that at least four people were shot, including the victim who died.
A suspect has been taken into custody, according to the newspaper.
“The shooter is in the back seat of a patrol car right now,” Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said at the scene in Rockford.
Dr. Jeff Collins, the chief physician at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in Spokane, told the newspaper three victims were admitted to the hospital.
Their ages and extent of their injuries weren’t immediately known.
“We’re all hands on deck,” Collins told the Spokesman-Review. “We train for this regularly.”
Three patients are in stable condition at Providence, said hospital spokeswoman Liz DeRuyter. No others are expected.
Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement after the shooting: “This morning’s shooting at Freeman High School is heartbreaking. All Washingtonians are thinking of the victims and their families, and are grateful for the service of school staff and first responders working to keep our students safe.”
He said the Washington State Patrol and other state agencies would assist in the investigation.
Freeman High School, with 331 students, is in the Freeman School District.
All Spokane Public Schools were placed under lockdown after the shooting, according to a school-district tweet. The lockdown was later lifted.
Annie Baxter, whose two daughters attend a middle school across the street from the high school, told the Spokesman-Review that children were running into buildings when she pulled up to the school area at about 10:15 a.m. Classes were about to begin because it’s a late-start day, Baxter said.
“They did a modified lockdown drill yesterday,” she said. “I thought it was weird because they wouldn’t do (a drill) two days in a row.”
Worried parents rushed to the school in the town of about 500 people near the Idaho border, about 25 miles southeast of Spokane. The two-lane road into town was clogged as people sped to the school, according to The Associated Press.
Parents of Freeman students are instructed to go to the entrance of the school’s bus barn at Highway 27 to be reunited with their children.
