Seventh-grade student shoots self at Ohio school

JACKSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Authorities said a seventh-grade student shot and injured himself inside the restroom of an Ohio middle school Tuesday, sending the school into lockdown. Police have not said if the shooting was intentional but said the student was carrying a “distractionary device” in his backpack.

Police said no other students were injured in the shooting at Jackson Middle School, about six miles north of Massillon. The boy’s condition wasn’t immediately known. He was transported to a nearby hospital.

Jackson Township Police Chief Mark Brink said the device found in the student’s backpack was not an explosive that “would have caused harm to others,” but rather one that could have produced smoke or a loud bang. They described the weapon as a long gun.

One student’s mother read text messages from her son, who was barricaded inside the school. “‘Come get me in, like, an hour. We’re in a lockdown and I don’t know if it’s a drill. I love you. Just in case, if I go, tell everyone I love them,'” she told CBS Cleveland affiliate WOIO.

Jackson Local Schools superintendent Chris DiLoreto said the district’s four elementary schools were closed and that teachers and students at the middle school were dismissed for the day.

WOIO