By Stefanie Dazio and John Antczak, Associated Press
A student gunman opened fire Thursday at a Southern California high school, killing two students and wounding three others before he was captured in grave condition after shooting himself in the head, authorities said.
The shooting occurred around 7:30 a.m. at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Shauna Orandi, 16, said she was in her Spanish class doing homework when she heard four gunshots that she initially mistook as instruments from a band class. She said a student burst into the room saying he’d seen the gunman, and her classmates were stunned into silence.
“My worst nightmare actually came true,” she said later as she left a nearby park with her father. “This is it. I’m gonna die.”
Freshman Rosie Rodriguez said she was walking up the library stairs when she heard noises that “sounded like balloons” popping. She realized they were gunshots when she saw other students running.
Still carrying a backpack laden with books, she ran across the street to a home, where a person she didn’t know gave shelter to her and about 10 other students.
“I just heard a lot of kids crying. We were scared,” Rodriguez said.
On a normal day, she said, Saugus High School felt very safe.
“We never really thought this would happen in our school,” she said.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said six people were shot, including the 16-year-old student suspect. Thursday was his birthday. No details were released on a motive.
A video of the shooting shows the gunman shooting himself in the head. Authorities say he was carrying a .45 caliber handgun.
The two students who died were 16 and 14. Their names were not released.
Saugus High School and other schools in the area were locked down.
Television images showed deputies swarming the school and several people being moved on gurneys. Lines of students were escorted from the school by armed deputies.
Anxious parents were awaiting reunification with their children in a park near the high school.
Los Angeles County Undersheriff Tim Murakami has tweeted an apology to the parents, saying investigators needed to interview the students before they could be released.
Orandi said she Has heard about so many school shootings that she always assumed she’d panic in such a moment.
But she said she stayed calm, thanks to the help of her teacher who locked down the classroom.
The shots rang out — “bang! pop!” — and Orandi said she heard people yelling and running. Students in the classroom started crying and hugging one another.
“I just couldn’t believe it was happening,” Orandi said.
She was escorted from the classroom to the school gym and later picked up by her father Hamid Orandi.
“She burst out crying like crazy, but I felt better because I knew the danger was gone,” he said. “It’s one of those random things you always have to worry about.”
His daughter said she would probably go home and vomit from the stress.
Student Sharon Orelana Cordova told KNBC-TV she hid under a table in a nurse’s office until officers came to get her.
“When I got out, I saw this person lying on the ground … with blood all over,” she said.
Shot himself in the head with a .45? That has to be messy.
Apparently he managed to survive. Guessing the .45 fans will be arguing about how that’s possible.
Managed to survive, but in grave condition. The soulless little bastard might not survive long.
That’s how he survived. .45 kills the soul, and he didn’t have one.
normally isn’t…must have had accuracy issues…
Not terribly unusual for people to flinch as they do it. Up through the mouth (the old Buddy Dwyer special) helps prevent this but some are still incompetent enough that they end up blowing a hole in their neck without dying. Shotgun solves that problem, though.
Grave condition probably means he’s brain dead and nothing more than an organ donor at this point.
In all likelihood, he’s done, but naturally we’ll hear more but I suspect he’s alive for short time only until they harvest his organs so some good comes out of this.
Film at 11
“Grave condition” is double speak for “He’s toast.”
Technically, in medical lingo, “grave condition” means that the patient is alive, but moribund and not expected to survive.
This is below the state of “critical,” which basically means the vital signs are not stable, and much intervention is necessary to compensate or stabilize the vital signs.
As expected and as I indicated was going to happen, he has died.
A moment of silence please…times up.
11/15/19
he didn’t aim the handgun properly. Otherwise he’d be dead. Lucky him.
Hopefully he hit something that’ll cause him to stroke/seizure out of this mortal coil instead of simply blinding himself or getting a lobotomy.
This is actually more common in suicides or attempted suicides then most people believe. Remember how the brain works. If you shoot yourself and the bullet doesn’t travel through your brain you won’t die instantly. In fact I’ve used this fact when trying to talk someone off the ledge once before. There’s many times when people just blow there jaw off, blow the side of their out, or paralyze themselves instead of dying. There’s also a possibility of a slow painful death. I know of one case where a man shot himself in the head with a .357, and instead of dying instantly he actually bled out for 10 minuets before actually dying. I bring this up because many suicidal people seemingly a chose a gun to the head, as it’s perceived to be a painless “bang and lights out”, kind of death, when that’s not always the case.
Large portions of the brain can be removed without causing death. If the medulla is intact, receiving blood and not overly compressed someone can stay breathing even if their mind is gone.
That’s because they ain’t doin’ it right. To be sure, you have to hold the muzzle flat against that soft spot in the back of the head, angled very slightly upwards with one hand and pull the trigger with your other hand. That way you get the full muzzle blast plus the bullet inside your skull. They should teach basic human anatomy in school.
“That’s because they ain’t doin’ it right.”
A common error is to put the gun in their mouth with the barrel mostly vertical when fired.
That means the bullet trajectory passes through their sinuses turning them to pulp and the pressure can destroy their eyeballs.
It’s not a nice way to eventually die in a few hours…
Knew a dipshit once upon a time who tried to kill himself with a .30-30 and failed. Dumbass put it under his chin and just blew off part of his jaw and face. We all would have been better off if his marksmanship had been better. He’s currently doing the LWOP for murdering his GF with that same .30-30. I guess we’ll see in a couple days whether or not this kid is equally stupid.
Everybody knows how that happens. Dumbass completely missed, so he’s just brain dead, which he may have been before.
I’ve seen video footage of a man committing suicide with a 1911. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the M80 in a tomato people seem to think it would be.
Thinking of the interrogation room video? Seems about right for a non-magnum. Did the job in that case, though.
That would be the one.
And I heard he was 16 yr old. Another law broken?
This just in, the shooter is being identified as 16 year old Nathaniel Berhow
Also known as just another sad, angry, misguided human who has no other purpose in life beyond sharing their misery in the wrong way.
So, a socialist?
A Socialist isn’t happy, until you’re unhappy… 😉
But but but, CA has the strictest gun laws around. This couldn’t have happened!
They’re realizing impeachment’s a bust, so the school shootings are back on.
I’m always curious about people who claim shootings are staged false flag events. Do you guys think the anti 2A crowd just has 16 year olds on retainer waiting to carry out massacres?
No, no, NO! That’s just too far out. What are you THINKING?!
What’s REALLY happening is that the Rosicrucians in the New World Order have been raising Manchurian Candidate-grade amorphous Asian-looking drones to live among us as if they were Normal Americans, only to suddenly (on their 16th birthdays) run amok in schools wielding Yeet Cannons. After shooting up one magazine’s worth of ammunition, they are then programmed to shoot themselves in the head so as to destroy all possibility of their revealing their Hidden Masters, the Gray Lizard People who live in the Centre of the Earth and Vote Liberal.
We saw the first warnings of this coming storm in ‘Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!’ Many thought that this film was a comedy, only to have it now revealed that it was n harbinger of things to come.
“It’s a Cook Book!”
So far, he’s just a teenager who had just lost his father and had feelings he didn’t know how to handle or express.
“He was a good student, an athlete, and friends say, literally a Boy Scout. He’d been hit hard by the recent death of his father, one neighbor said, but otherwise seemed like a typical teenager.
Sheriff’s officials declined to publicly identify the suspect because he is a minor. But two law enforcements sources identified him to CNN as Nathaniel Berhow.”
Johnny in AK, Please be cautious when posting obviously sarcastic comments, there are many on this forum who will believe it and start spreading the disease.
And, obviously, you win the inter-webs for this week with your obscure but excellent twilight zone reference, well played, sir!
In the land of 1000 dances, today I am doing the Lurch!
Believe it? I didn’t even understand it!!
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE WEREN’T THE GUN FREE ZONE SIGNS WORKING, I’M SHOCKED!!
ever ask yourself why this never seems to happen in inner city schools?…where everyone coming in is routinely scanned…sounds like another case of “It can’t happen here”….
Also because black kids are actively working on surviving, not killing themselves. Suicide rates among whites is more than twice that of blacks.
but HIV is way up for young blacks as well
and they have to worry a lot more about another young black man killing them
just sayin’…
Except this was reportedly a15-yr-old Asian kid. Not black *or* white.
Sad, though, regardless of skin. When the world tells kids that life doesn’t have any worth at the beginning (abortion), end (assisted suicide), or afterward (evolution instead of a Creator), then why is it any surprise that they don’t see any value in themselves or their targets in this moment now?
Yeah I just brought it up because of the inner city question, and I haven’t heard of black kids doing this type of suicidal school shooting. It is sad. Why have suicide rates doubled in the past 20 years? How is that progress? I personally suspect the increase in suicide rates is tied to this style of school shooting. It’s basically just a suicide with a big FU attached to it. As for the reason for the increase in suicides, I think it tracks with the breakdown of interpersonal / family relationships.
And then wonder why those same kids get shot durring a drug deal because they have the wrong color bandana?
I went to a rough school where we had metal detectors and unfriendly popo as security guards. I always felt safe inside but all bets were off once school was out
There is only one way that I support ‘murder/suicide’ – that is if the person does the suicide first.
It’s ok, not an assault rifle and likely less than 10 rounds a mag (7 or 8 if 1911?), the politicians say that kind of attack is fine, nothing to see here. No bump stocks or high cap mags or high powered .223. Those students should appreciate that their state protected them so well.
They’ll claim their laws kept the casualties to a minimum, but still scream for more laws. Already had that argument with someone.
Background checks. Not that it would have done anything, but they love them some background checks.
“Ban all semi autos!” Will be the cry.
Probably, but even antique wheel guns will get the job done.
Where did he get the gun? The call will be for safe storage laws.
Kalifornistan has had Safe Storage Laws for years. Remember the Fresno Pitchfork murders?
Another gun-free zone “success story”.
It’s the schools fault this happened. They failed to teach him how to read.
Well it is California.
A good father would have taught him about the value of human life and how to properly handle/respect a gun.
If this Asian kid’s father is anywhere in the picture, you can bet LE will be all over him for a week with questions and a microscope, especially since there are now at least two dead victims.
I heard the father had died a couple years back, unknown of the living situation currently. Apparently a neighbor told news that his dad was a gun guy, reloader, etc.
Id almost be shocked if this is still in the news by tomorrow night. Only a 45acp 2 kids dead. Nothing news about this story. Doesnt fit in right.
No Sinister scary black rifle here.
I was thinking the same thing. It will vanish quickly because it doesn’t match the narrative.
Oh for the old old daze when they stuck criminals head’s on a PIKE😄😋😏
Notice how all the cops that responded are carrying “weapons of war” that have no place on the streets of America?
The only purpose those weapons of war have is spraying bullets at rapid fire to kill massive amounts of people.
I keep asking why the police have them and who they’re going to mass-murder, but nobody has an answer.
I’m told minorities because the police are apparently all racist.
Yeah, I’ve had a hard time putting those two together for a while now…
This appears on the surface to another psychological something or other where apparently someone or ones overlooked or were incapable of seeing. It seems he was after specific people, too.
Maybe his gf was bangin’ his buddies.
No its California. She was with another girl.
She only identifies as a girl. It’s all very confusing.
Or she was with his boyfriend.
Agree. This does come across as rather personal. It seems like he shot everyone twice at close range, then turned the gun on himself.
Well, happy birthday?
Savage
He did try to blow out his own candle with that .45.
Amazing!!!
The California law enforcement all have “Weapons of War”!!!
They look so neat escorting unarmed teachers from a school shooting. Not one “patrol rifle” was used to stop the killer.
But the cops look like they know what their doing holding that “weapon of war”.
Pray for the victims and their families.
In this instance, they aren’t “weapons of war”. They are police “patrol rifles”.
this happens because children are left to there own and not being taught to respect life and also the crazy video games they play don’t help and also if they were raised with God in there life would not hurt there is a lot of different reasons and it all falls back on parents and grandparents
“On a normal day, she said, Saugus High School felt very safe.”
Proof once again that feeling safe is not, in fact, safety.
Where did the shooter get his gun? Did he get it from his home, left unsecured by a careless parent? Every gun owner needs to take effective steps to secure their weapons, to keep them out of the hands of children and the mentally unstable. That won’t prevent all such murdurous activity, but it will surely save some lives.
You’re right. Mandatory storage laws would save a few lives.
If the government would just mandate safe storage of all mass-communication devices, our kids would only have access to ideas posted by mature adults with government-sanctioned thoughts.
I know you can’t respond to this post, since you surely locked your smart phone in a safe after the local PD approved your thought, and you clicked ‘post’, but just know that many of us agree with you, and applaud your commitment to saving lives.
When my iPhone can maim and kill people in an instant, at a distance, then yes I will keep it secured when not in my immediate possession. Until then, I suggest you try to get a grip on reality.
Here’s a grip on reality for you! A few years back a kid murdered his MOTHER to get a gun in order to kill children. You can NEVER prevent crimes by restricting access to guns. What can prevent crimes is for everyone (!!!) to be armed. You try causing some trouble, you gain weight, a few hundred grains at a time.
Try this, if all guns are locked down, all the time, everywhere, a kid can conk a cop with a baseball bat, take HIS gun, and then kill dozens and dozens, unopposed, since no one else has the means to stop him. Wake up!
LarryinTX, the crime you cite, Adam Lanza’s murderous rampage in Sandy Hook, would in all likelihood have been prevented if his mother had kept her arsenal locked up and secure from her mentally ill son. We’re talking about keeping firearms locked up *when not in the physical control of the owner* or other legit user. When you are not in immediate physical possession of your weapons, keep them locked up. That will save lives, whether you choose to recognize that or not.
RD, let’s spend some time thinking that through. We’re talking about a guy willing to first kill his own mother so he could then follow that up with killing a room full of children. Your claim is that if she had put the guns in a safe, he would have shrugged it off and everything would have been fine?
The safe is secure as long as he doesn’t have the key or combination, meaning the mother would have had to keep it from him. Do you believe he would have hesitated to beat it out of her? In his plans, she was dead anyway.
If passing a law worked, the laws against murder would have been sufficient.
Adam Lanza was, by all accounts, mentally ill. Yes, he may have been alert enough to formulate ways of getting access to his mother’s secured firearms ~ but we don’t know that for sure. My point is, why make it easy for children and the mentally troubled to access firearms? You seem to be saying, because no gun safe is perfect, we should be content to do nothing to secure our weapons?
Here is the important part. I heard all of this pretty much all day. 6 shot. 2 dead four more shot. 5 shot, one dead. The shooter was found 2 1/2 miles a way. The shooter shot himself at the scene. The shooter was a white male. The shooter was an Asian male. The shooter used an assault weapon, they always do. the shooter used a handgun that shot a 45 caliber bullet, which are devastating. The shooter was 15. The shooter just turned 16 today. Channel 200, live, the latest news is…, Channel 205, live, the latest news is… (different) not two minutes later. We need stricter gun laws. Our gun laws are not good enough. Sacramento needs to act now. The NRA is to blame for this. We need to consider [banning] all weapons that can kill a person. His social media had post that seemed questionable. His social media gave no indication he might do this. And the crap just kept coming and coming and changing. With all the gun regulations California already has, this happens. And then it is compounded by half truths and speculation.
The best I can tell, the Lame stream News Media’s favorite reporter was working the case: Miss Information. One channel actually said “early reports are often incorrect.” But how much hoplophobia did they generate in the mean time? No one can hold the fifth estate responsible.
We all know that Mr. Zimmerman knew about this within minutes of it starting, few of us didn’t get the alert on our smart phone. But he waited until he had Facts, until the chaff was sifted from the wheat before reporting the story. He didn’t white wash it, he didn’t slant it, he just gave us the facts. That is true journalism.
Nobody mentioned that a US school that has armed teachers has never had an attack or mass shooting. But ‘Fauxahontas’ Warren has said that no school should have guns inside, no police, no resource officer. But they do need counselors to work with troubled kids. Another half truth, they need both, and decent security.
Yes, the news reporting was incredibly faulty today. All over the map with erroneous info and subsequent retractions/reissues. Didn’t know what to trust.
3 TTAG posts on this incident, a lot of speculation comments. Slow news day yeah?
The cries for Martial Law here yet…Seeing that Kommilifornia has already implemented as much gun control as it can…So next stop, “The Burning of The US Constitution/Bill of Rights, since people have too many Rights!
Well, y’all can kiss your 1911s goodbye now.
What does the Bonespurian Candidate have to say about this?
Your TDS is rendering you unintelligible.
No the Bonespuring Fake 45 does not give a shit about students being massacred, he is busy making money off the Presidency and sabotaging our democratic way of life by making deals with the Ukrainians one week to sabotage our elections and deals with his lover Putin the following week to put up new hotels in Russia while his prostitute Moscow Mitch McConnell assured Putin no money will be spent to buy new Russian proof election machines.. What a bunch of traitorous criminals. It does not matter whether your a Democrat or a Republican but when you destroy American democracy you need to be prosecuted for treason. Are you reading this Mitch.
Have some more punch and cookies.
Your TDS is showing. You won’t mind if we take a little blood sample to check which drugs are effecting your thought processes?
Looks like the only reason the slaughter was not worse is because when the cops examined the gun it was empty. He shot the gun dry and then saved the last bullet for himself.
Question: How did a 16 year old get the gun? Did his mother have it locked up or was the safe left unlocked. Did he get the gun by stealing it or buying it out on the street?
Fact: the cops got there in 2 minuets which would indicate that even if the school had armed teachers they could not have acted any faster than that to stop him.
Did the kid have a history of mental illness and if so was he being treated for it?
The kids girlfriend survived. Did she have something to do with his explosive anger such as a break up?
Already a Congressman stated he was arguing for universal background checks as the shooting was going on and it was shut down by the Republicans but Universal Background Checks obviously had nothing to do with this shooting. The Congressman does not get high marks for dancing in the blood of the victims on this one.
Fact:. Kids today do not have the close nit and loving family life that was once taken for granted in the U.S. Broken homes, both parents working, latch key children coming home to empty houses, parents and kids on drugs, unaffordable mental health care, and violence from bullying at school all have resulted in a society coming apart at the seams.
In the end people seek simplistic solutions to complex problems and the simplistic solution is simply to ban all gun ownership. It looks very bad for gun owners after 2020 as gun control has now risen to one of the top worries of the American Public. No society will tolerate the weekly mass shootings in schools and the gun owners take all the blame for them. With all the hysteria no court in the land will overturn any gun ban laws as their prior history has already proven it and that was before the current ongoing insanity of weekly mass shootings. The Media reported tonight there have been 30 some this year and almost as many last year. That averages out to one at least every other week. With that kind of frequent death and carnage the gun owners ass is grassed.
Bullshit.
Agree..I throw the BS flag as well.
“Fact: the cops got there in 2 minuets which would indicate that even if the school had armed teachers they could not have acted any faster than that to stop him.”
You know there’s a huge difference, both conceptually and effectively, between 2 minute response time and zero minute response time, right?
You do not know the difference between your delusions and reality. When something like that happens the average person who is not a combat veteran will freeze for just a moment or two and with all the people running and screaming and all the complete chaos even trying to locate the shooter is not usually going to happen instantly. In other words two minutes passes by like a speeding freight train. As we saw today bodies were falling instantly. Even a well trained shooter (which teachers are not) would have to make sure they shot and did not hit innocent people while trying to shoot at the maniac. As you can see the so called pie in the sky, good guy guns down the bad guy like in the old fantasy westerns on 50’s TV is a farce and a delusion in real life.
Armed guards at doorways is another great delusion. Besides the fact that many less affluent schools do not even have the money to hire professional guards, places open to the public cannot be locked down and everyone who enters searched on a daily basis with so many people coming and going. The nut case will simply walk right past them and when he starts shooting bodies will be falling like rain before the guards or police can find the shooter and identify him and make a safe shot. This is not to say we should not have armed guards but they are not the complete solution by a long shot.
Elisabeth Warren did make some good points about spending more money on professional councilors for troubled students so that before a student goes off the deep end they will know they can go to someone for help as well as the ability and presence of professionals to head off tragedy before it strikes. In other words there is no one solution to the problem. The wild west shoot em up only solution makes about as much sense as locking the barn door after the horse gets out.
We as of yet do not know how this student got a hold of the gun he used but if the gun was owned by the remaining parent (his mother) she bears direct responsibility for not having it locked up according to California’s mandatory safe storage law (i.e. a gun safe). As you can see even with laws if they are not obeyed they are always not a panacea either but not to have them is like telling everyone, why bother to learn how to swim because I never go boating or why bother to lock up a gun because my kid would never do something like that. Famous last words. As one woman told me many years ago, “there is a reason laws are passed”.
Just ignore the fact that 90% of successful mass shooters strike in gun free zones where legally armed victims are impossible.
That dozens of potential mass shooters have absolutely been stopped before killing multiple people or sometimes before killing anyone at all because their victims were armed.
Got it.
Sorry dufus, 2 minute police respire time doesn’t indicate anything about armed teachers.
This is a chaos system, so response time could be more or less. The point is the chances of any response at all are increased with armed staff.
Do some real research. Read Dr. Eric Deitz’s research at Purdue University
Sorry dumb ass but the shooter took only 16 seconds. Unless someone was standing almost next to him there was not time to stop him. Now what part of this do you not understand.
Sorry troll dumb ass, but that is the point of the 10% to 15% armed staff. particularly around entrances and other especially vulnerable areas at the entrances to the school. And yes you shoot them in the head when you’re standing right there.
Study some counter ambush tactics, work in a school a while, get some training.
Well, I can sure agree with one thing! Gun control *IS* one of my major concerns for the future, including for the 2020 election. But that statement is completely useless, as is that polling question. I want to DEFEAT any further gun control, and in fact ROLL BACK previous gun control. But Democraps will claim that since I answer that “gun control is a major concern”, it means we need MORE gun control. If you can’t address a question any more distinctly than that, perhaps you should STFU.
You gunners have no plan, no ideas, really no intent or interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people! To you, the more guns the merrier ~ the wild west mentality. Got a problem with somebody, pull out your gun and fire away.
When the cops do show up, how the hell do they tell the “good guy with a gun” from the “bad guy”? Maybe they just shoot everybody with a gun, just to be sure.
“No society will tolerate the weekly mass shootings in schools …” Followed almost immediately by “That averages out to one at least every other week.”
It appears that some people get caught up in their own hysterical B.S.
No it seems as though your not intelligent enough to see the forest from the trees. The other poster was correct, it does average out to 1 massacre every other week. Do the math and use your calculator if you need to.
Thank you for your kind offer. No calculator needed. The arithmetic here was pretty simple (even Millennials should have been able to follow the disparity in the original poster’s comment).
As far as intelligence is concerned, I don’t find it to be an issue…after all, you are posting here.
G’nite.
Nice try on trying to save face but you fell right on it. chuckle
Sheesh. Doofus, how precisely does “every other week” equate to the claim of “weekly”? Can you wake up?
Sorry but California police shouldn’t be allowed to have AR15’s and 30 round magazines of civilians can’t.
Like button!
JFK had the right side of his brain gone and he lived about a half hour.
I was around for that and remember it clearly.
I was around for that as well, JFK was dead as a post instantly, but *declaring* him dead had to wait for a priest to perform catholic last rites. It’s magic, see?
Are we sure the cops got the right guy?
I mean, look. Under California law, open carry is banned, and only people with a concealed carry license may carry concealed.
Concealed carry licenses are only available to people who show good cause.
If the suspect does not have a license, then it would have been impossible for him to carry the handgun, and the cops got the wrong guy.
Unfortunately school shootings have become part of our culture. Instead of just killing themselves they try to take out others before they kill themselves. Pathetic.
It all arises from the inner city.
Now what will liberal gun owners do in California when the, gun control homosexual lawmakers, that they have supported want to be in the bedrooms of every California resident?
And tell them what to do in the bedroom?
What will the liberal gun owners say when the socialist Progressive lawmakers get into everyones bedroom and tell people how to secure their guns?
Where to secure their guns?
When to secure their guns?
And when these gay and Progressive lawmakers send the police to inspect their weapons security status, what will they say then?
Liberals, the Left, the Socialist progressives, have historically always supported government inspectors being allowed to enter into a person’s home for inspection purposes. It’s been called the Welfare Industrial Complex Complex.
There is already plenty of historical precedents for supporting these government inspections from Liberals. Gun owners or not.
He shot a bunch of kids and then himself? The little sh!t should have reversed the process.
Maybe everyone shouldn’t have made fun of him and excluded him. Imagine being the only half white kid in a school of Mexicans.
I’m glad that school shootings exist. I went to school in South Africa, and you Americans would not believe the bullying.