BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Authorities say they are trying to determine what prompted a young girl to open fire at a rural Idaho middle school, one of the few school shootings in which the suspect is female.
The shooting happened around 9 a.m. Thursday, when police say the girl pulled a handgun out of her backpack and shot two other students and an adult custodian before she was disarmed by a teacher and held until police arrived. All three were shot in the extremities, and none had life-threatening injuries…
Girls and women commit just 2% of both mass shootings and school shootings in the U.S., according to data compiled by the group The Violence Project.
The group maintains a database of shootings at schools where more than one person was shot or a person came to school heavily armed with the intention of firing indiscriminately. It includes 146 cases going back to 1980. Girls were the shooters in just three of those cases. Experts differ on exactly why, though it’s known that men commit over 90% homicides in general.
Authors: Rebecca Boone and Lindsay Whitehurst
Source: Associated Press
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