The Slatest

Murder-Suicide in a San Bernardino Elementary School Classroom Kills 3, Including One Child

North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino
Students were evacuated from North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California, on Monday following a possible murder-suicide shooting on campus.

KTLA 5

A shooting in a San Bernardino, California, school classroom Monday morning has left at least two dead, and others are being treated for injuries, according to local officials. The attack, which occurred at North Park Elementary School, was preliminarily called a “murder suicide” by San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan, who said that two adults were deceased. Two wounded victims were being taken to local hospitals; the chief said it was possible that these individuals were students.

“We believe the suspect is down and there’s no further threat,” Burguan said on Twitter.

As of right now details remain unclear. According to the Los Angeles Times, the gunfire occurred just after 10:30 a.m. The Times reports that a triage area has been set up, quoting a spokesman from the San Bernardino County Fire Department who called it a “developing situation.” Students were being taken to a nearby high school for safety, where their parents will be able to pick them up.

The attack comes a little more than a year after a mass shooting in San Bernardino left 14 people dead.

Update, 3:49 p.m.: At a press conference Monday afternoon, officials said one of the two adults found dead after the attack was a female teacher at North Park Elementary School; the other person, who had evidently died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a man believed to have been the perpetrator of the attack. Officials say he had come to visit the classroom and had signed in with the school’s front office.

Officials said they could not say definitively what the relationship was between the two deceased individuals, but that the two children who were injured are not believed to have been deliberately targeted. Those two children are in critical condition, officials said. The identity of the suspected attacker has not been released because police have not yet confirmed it.

Update: 6:59 p.m.: One of the two children shot by stray gunfire, 8-year-old Jonathan Martinez, has died, bringing the total number of dead, including the assailant, to three.

Police have also confirmed that the shooter was 53-year-old Cedric Anderson; his intended target was evidently his wife, 53-year-old Karen Elaine Smith, who was a teacher at the school. According to the Los Angeles Times, the other child who was shot during the attack, a 9-year-old, remains in the hospital and is in stable condition. A spokeswoman for the school district told the paper that the shooting took place in classroom for students with special needs; there were 15 kids in the room at the time of the attack, and the two who were hit were reportedly standing behind the teacher when Anderson opened fire.