Student shot at N.C. high school

ALBEMARLE, N.C. — One student was shot Tuesday at a high school in this city about 35 miles east of Charlotte, N.C., police said.

Another student, a juvenile whose name has not been released, was taken into custody immediately after the 7:40 a.m. ET shooting at Albemarle High School, and the handgun used has been recovered, said the city's police chief, William Halliburton.

The condition of the 17-year-old victim was not immediately available, said Halliburton, who at one point told media that the teen was shot in the leg but then said he was told bullets penetrated both the student's hip and lower abdomen. He was taken to a nearby hospital.

The two students involved apparently had a disagreement leading to the shooting, which happened in the high school's courtyard outside its front door, the chief said.

The student who fired the shots put down his gun, walked to the front office and turned himself in to the school resource officer and principal, Halliburton said. He was subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

"This was a personal, one-on-one confrontation," Halliburton said. "He could have done more, so the reaction is that we're thankful that he gave himself up."

The school was on lockdown for about 90 minutes. School officials canceled classes for Tuesday and allowed parents to pick up their children after ensuring that the gunman acted alone.

Albemarle High, which has about 450 students, is one of two high schools in this city of about 16,000 residents. The school has about 40 teachers and almost 3 in 5 of the students are minorities, according to U.S. News & World Report. Almost three-quarters of the students are economically disadvantaged.

It had no instances of assaults with a firearm or possession of a firearm on campus this past school year, according to a Stanly County Schools report.

Also Tuesday, a high school student in Kentucky was injured and one person was apprehended after a shooting at a Louisville high school.

The student's injuries were not life threatening and he was reunited with parents at University Hospital, Officer Phil Russell said. He didn't say if the injured student and shooter knew each other or if the shooter was a student at Fern Creek Traditional High School.

Russell said the Kentucky suspect left the 1,400-student school immediately after firing the shot but was later arrested.

Contributing: Dan Yesenosky, WCNC-TV, Charlotte, N.C.; The Associated Press