Police said the person who opened fire was apprehended within 15 minutes of the shooting.
Investigators gather outside Townville Elementary School after a shooting in the South Carolina town in 2016. Credit: Reuters/Nathan Gray/Representational image
Benton: One person was killed and multiple others were wounded in a shooting at a high school in western Kentucky on Tuesday, but a suspect was arrested shortly after the violence, state police reported on Twitter.
The shooting erupted at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, a town about 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Nashville, Tennessee, according to Kentucky State Police posts on Twitter.
Official details were initially sketchy, but police said the person who opened fire was apprehended within 15 minutes of the shooting.
“The scene is secured, (and) the suspect is in custody,” police said. The state police’s initial Twitter alert reported “multiple victims, one of which has been pronounced dead.”
A Marshall County sheriff’s deputy took the shooter into custody, Sergeant Josh Lawson, a state police spokesman, said by phone. Lawson said he had no further details about the assailant or the extent of the injuries.
School officials and the county sheriff could not immediately be reached for further details.
The school has an enrolment of 1,146 students in grades 10 through 12. Marshall County has a population of about 31,000 people. Benton is the county seat.
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin called the shooting a “tremendous tragedy” in a statement posted on Twitter.
“It is unbelievable that this would happen in a small, close-knit community like Marshall County,” he added.