LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Six Las Vegas high school students were shot and wounded, two of them seriously, on Tuesday in what police said was a schoolyard argument over a girl that spilled into the streets.
By Ian Mylchreest
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Six Las Vegas high school students were shot and wounded, two of them seriously, on Tuesday in what police said was a schoolyard argument over a girl that spilled into the streets.
Police said two male assailants opened fire after the six -- five boys and a girl -- stepped off a school bus at about 2 p.m. (5 p.m. EST), hours after a fight at the campus over a girl.
All six were taken to a local hospital for treatment, where two of the boys, both 18, remained on Tuesday night. One of the boys was listed in critical condition and the other in serious condition.
!ADVERTISEMENT!The other four students were released from the hospital with less serious injuries.
"At the beginning of school there was a fight among three students," said Clark County School police spokesman Ken Young. "Officers quickly broke up that fight and arrested them."
Police said the shooting after school appeared to be related to that incident and that it appeared the gunmen were waiting for the students to step off the bus.
"The original report said that (witnesses) heard four to five shots and saw two children on the ground. Seconds later we got another call that another person heard about 10 gunshots and saw four kids (fall)," Las Vegas Police spokesman Ramon Denby said.
The incident followed two other highly publicized gun tragedies in recent days -- a pair of weekend shootings at a Christian Missionary training center and a church in Colorado in which a 24-year-old man killed four people and then himself, and a shopping mall rampage in Omaha, Nebraska, last week in which a 19-year-old killed eight people and then himself with an assault rifle.
Denby said police had detained five or six people for questioning but had not arrested any suspects and could not yet provide a description of the two assailants, other than to say that they were male.
Gang investigators were working on the case.
(Writing and additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
