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A 15-year-old was killed and two other teenagers were injured in the shooting outside East High School in Des Moines, the authorities said.
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Neil Vigdor and
Six teenagers were charged with murder after a shooting outside a high school in Des Moines on Monday left a 15-year-old boy dead and two other teenagers hospitalized, the authorities said.
The boy who was killed was the target of the shooting outside East High School on Monday afternoon, the Des Moines Police Department said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. The boy did not attend the school, which serves about 2,000 students in Iowa’s capital.
The two teenagers who were injured, 16-year-old and 18-year-old females, are East High students and were not intended targets, the police said.
The 18-year-old was listed in critical condition as of Tuesday morning, the police said. The 16-year-old had been upgraded to serious condition from critical condition.
Six teenagers from Des Moines between the ages of 14 and 17 were each charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, the police said.
There were multiple shooters who fired from multiple vehicles, Sgt. Paul Parizek, a spokesman for the Des Moines Police Department, said in a news release on Tuesday.
Multiple search warrants were executed and six firearms were recovered.
“While this incident occurred outside of a school, it could have occurred in any one of our neighborhoods,” the police said on Facebook. “The school is where the suspects found their target.”
Kaylie Shannon, a student at the school, told the television station KCCI that she was outside when she heard gunfire.
“I was just sitting in my friend’s car and then all of the sudden I heard 11 gunshots and some boys screaming,” she said.
The Des Moines Public Schools superintendent, Thomas Ahart, said in a statement that firearms were “far too easily accessible” in Iowa and throughout the United States, and called for “real change to gun laws and access.”
“We live in an era when shootings in and near schools have become too common,” Mr. Ahart said. “Our staff and students are forced to train for these incidents and the trauma associated with the repeated drills and incidents will remain with them for years to come.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on Monday that special agents from its office were on the scene and helping with the investigation.
Amanda Holpuch contributed reporting.
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