Updated at 3:44 p.m. ET
TAFT, Calif. A student was shot and critically wounded at a rural California high school Thursday and a student suspect was taken into custody, officials said
The sheriff of Kern County, Calif., says the 16-year-old student who was shot is in critical but stable condition.
Sheriff Donny Youngblood says the shooter is a student who walked into a class at Taft Union High School Thursday morning and shot the teen with a shotgun, and then fired at another student but missed. A teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head.
Youngblood says the teacher tried to get other students out a back door, then he and another staff member engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, and convinced him to put down the gun.
The shooting happened on the second floor of the school's science building around 9 a.m., according to CBS affiliate KBAK in Bakersfield.
As word spread, Dayna Hopper rushed to the school to pick up her son Joseph Sorensen, 16, and daughter, Cheryle Pryor, 15, who had called from Cheryle's cell phone.
"I panicked. I wanted to puke and just get here," Dayna Hopper told The Bakersfield Californian.
KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.
The bell had just rung at a nearby school when teachers began shouting for students to get inside buildings, and the principal used an intercom to tell students to stay inside, Felicity Reich, 13, a student at Lincoln Junior High School, told the newspaper.
Shaken, she held the hand of her mother, Ellie Reich, as she spoke.
The student who was shot at the high school was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield, said Ray Pruitt, spokesman for the Kern County Sheriff's Department.
It was not immediately clear how many students are enrolled at the high school, which includes 9th through 12th grades.
Masses of parents headed to the school football field to find their children, and officials at other schools took action to protect their students as well, the newspaper said.
The Taft shooting came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.
That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.
At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the thoughts and prayers of legislators were with the people at the Taft school.
"It really is just another very sad moment as we deal with the ongoing reality of gun violence that has captured so much of our attention this last year," Perez said.
Student shot at Calif. high school; Suspect held
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Student shot at Calif. high school; Suspect held
