A suspect is in custody after a high school shooting in Ocala, Florida that left one student injured.
The Associated Press reported that the shooting took place at Forest High School Friday morning and that the suspected shooter is a student at the school. His age was not immediately available.
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Marion Public Schools spokesman Kevin Christian said the student was shot in the ankle, according to CNN.
Chris Oliver told the AP that his 16-year-old son, a Forest student, told him the shooting happened near his classroom. The boy told Oliver the shooter was standing in a hallway and shot at a closed classroom door. The shooter then dropped an unspecified weapon, ran and tried to hide, the boy told his father.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page announced around 9:00 a.m. ET that the injured student was being treated by medics. The Ocala Star-Banner reported that the student was later taken to a hospital.
The post also urged people to avoid the area and for parents to pick up their children not at the school, but at the nearby First Baptist Church of Ocala.
“Parents of Forest High School students: Please do NOT come to Forest High School to pick up your children. The school board will be reuniting parents and students at the First Baptist Church of Ocala on Southeast Maricamp Road,” the Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook.
Marion County Schools were on code yellow “just as a precaution,” the post read. Code yellow indicates that students need to stay in their classrooms with their teachers while normal classroom activity continues, according to American School & University. Students and staff remain in a code yellow until an “all clear” or additional instructions are given.
“In a code yellow, all school doors will be locked and regular classroom instruction continues behind the locked doors,” the district’s Code of Student Conduct said, as reported by WFTV.
The campus of Forest High School was on lockdown earlier in the morning. Forest High School was ranked as one of the best high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and has about 2,100 students.
Ocala, Florida is in central Florida, about 80 miles northwest of Orlando and 100 miles southwest of Jacksonville.
The shooting comes on the same days as a National School Walkout against gun violence. It’s been more than two months since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faculty members were killed.
