Currents News Staff
Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California is the latest to feel the shock from being the site of a mass school shooting.
The shooting suspect – a student at the high school – carried out the deadly attack Nov. 15 on his sixteenth birthday. In a matter of seconds, lives in the town 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles were forever changed.
“He was just standing in the middle of the quad really not saying or doing anything. He had a backpack on. At one point he took off the backpack, he retrieved a .45 semi auto pistol,” said Sheriff Alex Villanueva of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
“He shot one round, fired at one student, injured that student. and then appeared to clear some sort of jam in the weapon and then fired an additional four rounds at four other students before turning the gun on himself. That ended it all in 16 seconds,” he said.
“I’ve known him his whole life. I remember holding him as a baby. I kinda looked at him as a younger brother,” said Jared Axen, the suspect’s neighbor.
As the suspect lies in grave condition at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, everyone is wondering: Why?
“At this time, we have no reason to believe that the subject is acting on behalf of any other group or any ideology,” said Paul Delacourt of the FBI.
The Los Angeles county sheriff says the suspect’s father died of natural causes two years ago. His mother and his girlfriend were interviewed by detectives.