Ohio Seventh-Grader Who Shot Himself at School Dies

An Ohio middle school student who brought a gun to school and shot himself in a bathroom just before classes began Tuesday has died of his injuries, authorities said.

The student was identified as 13-year-old Keith Simons in a report by The Columbus Dispatch. He was taken to the Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, Ohio on Tuesday morning to be treated for the self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Summit County Medical Examiner’s office announced on Wednesday that Simons died.

Authorities say Simons snuck a .22-caliber long gun into school with him on Tuesday morning, though they’re not sure if he meant to use it on himself or others. He concealed the firearm under his clothes from the school bus all the way to the restroom. He also reportedly had devices in his backpack meant to cause a distraction. He was carrying bottle rockets, batteries and ammunition — though exactly how much, they wouldn’t say.

“There was nothing in there that would make you believe that he had a bomb,” Jackson Police Chief Mark Brink told reporters.

“We are attempting to find out exactly what he was planning for yesterday morning,” he continued. He said that the investigation will take “a long period of time.”

Brink said that Simons took the gun from his mother’s house. Police are still not sure whether anyone else was involved in the shooting. They brought bomb-sniffing dogs into the school, but found nothing to trigger any alarms.

Parents rushed to the school to take their children home when administrators sent out a alert about the shooting. The school has about 1,400 students. Some parents waited outside for hours until all the kids were cleared to leave.

“That Florida shooting just happened, and you keep thinking about your kid,” Daniela Biller told Cincinnati.com. Biller has three students at the school.

“They wouldn’t tell us what was going on. I thought there was a school shooting. There was a lot of waiting,” eighth-grader Alex Garcia told The Independent. “I didn’t have any idea there was someone with a gun until I was released.”