OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin high school resource officer shot a 16-year-old student Tuesday after the boy stabbed him in his office, marking the second time in as many days that a school resource officer has been involved in a student shooting in the state.
Oshkosh Police Chief Dean Smith said he didn’t believe the officer or the student suffered life-threatening injuries. He said the officer shot the teenager once, but he didn’t know how many times the officer fired. The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation is handling the investigation.
The incident took place around 9 a.m. at Oshkosh West High School, a school of 1,700 students. Smith said the student was in the officer’s office when they got into an “altercation.” The boy produced an “edged weapon” — Smith declined to elaborate — and stabbed the officer, who fired his 9-mm pistol. The officer then called for help.
It wasn’t clear what prompted the attack, with Smith deferring most questions to the investigation. Smith said the resource officer — like all resource officers in Oshkosh schools — is also a police officer.
The school was locked down, and parents later reunited with their children at a nearby middle school.
“Today’s tragic event shows that trained school resource officers can save lives,” Oshkosh School District Superintendent Vickie Cartwright said at a news conference.
An Oshkosh West student identified only as Evelyn told WLUK-TV that she was in class when she heard screaming and her teacher walked out.
“And then, like, after two minutes she ran back into the classroom and she was like, ‘Everybody needs to evacuate right now!’ And then we all ran out of the class and then we saw everybody from our school running to across the street.”
The shooting comes on the heels of a Monday school shooting in suburban Milwaukee. A resource officer at Waukesha South High School, about 80 miles south of Oshkosh, confronted an armed student in a classroom. Another police officer shot the 17-year-old student when he refused to drop his weapon, police said.
Police in Waukesha said Tuesday that the student had pointed a pellet gun at another student’s head. The officer shot the student once in the leg and twice in the arm. The student was taken to a hospital where he was in stable condition Tuesday.
Waukesha Police Chief Russell Jack said the resource officer was able to remove many students from harm’s way.
“Most people run away from danger,” Jack said. “Law enforcement officers run towards danger, especially when someone is threatening our children.”
Linda Ager told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Waukesha shooting happened in the classroom of her husband, Brett Hart, a special education teacher at Waukesha South. Ager said her husband restrained the student until the resource officer arrived.
School resource officers are typically sworn police officers assigned to patrol a school. No laws in Wisconsin lay out requirements for the job or restrict the types of weapons they can use.