Prosecutors in California filed felony charges Friday against the 12-year-old girl behind the latest school shooting. The girl is accused of carrying a loaded gun in her backpack that went off injuring four students in a middle school classroom.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office filed one felony count of minor in possession of a firearm and one felony count of carrying a weapon on school grounds. The shooting took place last Thursday and left several students injured from bullet wounds. <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/17286-12-Year-Old-Girl-Opens-Fire-at-California-Middle-School">The Goldwater first broke the story</a> moments after the shooting which took place at Salvador Castro Middle School around 9 am.
A Los Angeles Police Department news release said, "This continues to be an active investigation. However, at this time, the information suggests that this was an isolated incident, involving the negligent discharge of a firearm, where innocent children and a staff member were unfortunately injured."
The weapon the girl carried is a semi-automatic handgun and it somehow went off while inside her backpack, according to Detective Meghan Aguilar. A classmate of the shooter, 12-year-old Jordan Valenzuela, said he talked with the girl just after the shooting.
According to Valenzuela, she was sobbing and kept repeating "I didn't mean it." He also says she told him the gun was in her backpack and that it accidentally went off when she dropped the bag. After the gun went off, she reportedly asked Valenzuela to hide the gun.
"She said, 'If I give you the gun will you hide it for me?'" Valenzuela said. "I said 'No.' Then I moved away from her because I was a little bit scared." Benjamin Urbina, who is also a classmate of the shooter, said the girl didn't mean to shoot anyone and believed it was a toy gun.
A boy and a girl, both 15-years-old, were hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head, according to fire officials. Steve Zipperman, chief of LA School Police, said, "It was a very traumatic experience for students inside that classroom." It is not currently clear how many students were in the classroom when the gun went off.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer is demanding accountability for the weapon saying, "It's a requirement that adults safely store their firearms. There's a reason for that requirement; safely stored guns save lives."
A father of one of the students said, "You can't process it. It's my son and everybody else's kids in that school."
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Why did she bring a handgun to school in her backpack in the 1st place? Ultimately the parents should be charged for allowing a child to access a firearm.