Teen girl shot at school
A 15-year-old student of the Norman Manley High School in Kingston was yesterday treated and released from hospital after being shot and injured on the school compound, allegedly by another student.
Police on the scene gave the name of the injured student as Racquel Oakley, and said they are now searching for a 14-year-old male student, who is registered at the school as having a Nelson Road address.
The incident took place at about 4:00 pm, minutes before the closing bell of the school day for second shift students.
Oakley, it is said, was sitting in a classroom with friends when gunshots were heard, causing a commotion at the school.
While students and teachers ran screaming from the source of the shooting, Oakley was discovered to have been shot in her right hand, and was rushed to hospital. The alleged shooter then fled the scene.
When the Observer arrived at the school, the campus was a virtual ghost town, with only a small cohort of school administrators locked away in the school office. Officials from Marksman security company, which provides security services for the school, were early on the scene, followed by detectives who subsequently cordoned the area with yellow police tape.
“The office is closed,” was the only comment one woman at the school would offer.
Inside classroom number 9, a ground-floor room with 20 desk units pushed haphazardly out of formation, a small pool of blood indicated where the shooting took place. That classroom, said a school caretaker, was used by first or second form students, who, according to a timetable chalked onto the blackboard, would have been in Music class at the time the incident took place. From classroom 9, the trail of blood drops circles the entire quadrangle, and seems to end at the Nurse’s office.
About two hours after the shooting, the Observer noticed a police party conducting a search and interview at premises at 38 Nelson Road, where a man voluntarily accompanied the cops to the Hunt’s Bay Police Station for questioning. It is unclear whether that operation was related to the school shooting.
