A Redland Middle School student was shot in the leg Friday and taken by air to Miami Children’s Hospital, where he is in stable condition, a school district spokesman said.
Police suspect that the gun may have been fired accidentally, Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesman John Schuster said in a statement.
Miami-Dade Schools Police were interviewing the student who allegedly brought the gun to the school at 16001 SW 248th St. in his book bag, Schuster said. The firearm was discharged in a classroom, said Police Chief Ian Moffett, who was on his first day on the job.
Pablo Sanchez, 12, said he heard a boom after the boy dropped his book bag in his sixth-grade history class.
The victim was shot in his calf and couldn't walk, and he was gushing blood as he lay on the floor, Sanchez said.
"And so then, what I’ve seen most of the time is that when you’re bleeding a lot you have to put pressure on it, so I took off my shirt, and some girl, she put pressure on it,” he said.
He said he learned to wrap his shirt around his classmate's calf by watching television.
12 Students Hurt in School Bus Crash in Opa-locka
A school district spokesperson initially said that the student was injured after getting hit by a bullet that exploded after another student threw it on the floor.
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A code red lockdown was lifted Friday afternoon after students were kept inside the school. One of them, Megan McCormick, said students were just told that they were under a code yellow and then a code red, but weren’t given any other explanation.
“Nobody really knew what was going on, so we didn’t know how to handle it," McCormick said. "We didn’t know to be scared, or we didn’t know if everything was OK.”
Arrest Made After 10 Students Hospitalized
A gun was found at the school and the incident remains under investigation, Schuster said.
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