A 12-year-old boy was arrested Monday after authorities said he shot another boy at a school in Northern California.
Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters the 13-year-old victim was stable after Monday afternoon’s shooting at Madison Park Academy.
It was not clear whether the suspect attended the school in the city’s Sobrante Park neighborhood. NBC Bay Area reported. Armstrong said officers took him into custody “quickly and safely”.
Armstrong said a motive was unknown.
“It saddens me to think that a kid would bring a gun to school,” he said. “No parent wants to send their kids to school during the day and get a phone call saying, ‘Your kid has been shot.’ It’s the worst phone call you can get.”
Additional details about the shooting were not immediately available and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Oakland, a city of less than half a million people east of San Francisco, has registered six homicides in recent days, including a Friday retaliatory triple homicide and a bicyclist fatally hit by an “out of control” vehicle. Armstrong said.
The homicide rate in the city this year is nearly equal to last year’s homicide rate, with deadly gun violence increasing.
By Monday, there had been 83 homicides in the city, two fewer than the same period last year, Armstrong said.