UPDATED, 12:37 p.m. PT: At least one person was shot when a gunman opened fire at a high school in California on Thursday morning, authorities there say.
The shooting occurred in the science building at Taft Union High School in Taft, Calif., at approximately 9 a.m. local time, a Kern County Sheriff's official told Yahoo News.
The suspected shooterтАФa 16-year-old male student at the schoolтАФdid not show up for the start of first period, police say. He entered the school with a 12-gauge shotgun and interrupted his first period class, shooting one student.
The victim, another 16-year-old, was airlifted to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Calif., with a shotgun wound to the upper right chest. He is in critical but stable condition.
The gunman named a second student in the 28-person class and fired the shotgun again, but missed police said. A teacher and a campus supervisor engaged the shooter in conversation inside the classroom, school officials said, and were able to convince him to put the shotgun down. The shooter was then taken into custody by police.
The teacher was treated at the scene for a pellet wound to the head, police said. Another student who was near the shotgun when it was fired was taken to the hospital where she was treated for hearing loss. A third student in the classroom was treated for minor injuries.
According to the school's website, two campus supervisors and an armed Kern County Sheriff's officer "monitor the campus before, during, and after school." About 1,000 students attend the high school.
ABC's Kero-Bakersfield affiliate said it received calls from students who were hiding in closets inside the school, located about 120 miles north of Los Angeles.
Students were evacuated while sheriff and fire personnel conducted room-to-room searches. One student told the network that he was in another building participating in an "active shooter drill" when the shooting occurred.
The high school was featured in the 1986 film "The Best of Times" starring Robin Williams and Kurt Russell. Friday's classes were cancelled.
The shootings come less than a month after 26 people, including 20 children, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The massacre led to calls for reforms to the country's gun laws.
On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden, appointed to lead a task force to reduce U.S. gun violence, was scheduled to meet with members of the National Rifle Association in Washington to discuss gun control.
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