The two kindergarten students shot at a northern California elementary school Wednesday by a gunman who later killed himself remain in “extremely critical condition,” authorities said.
The boys, ages 5 and 6, were being treated at a Sacramento-area trauma center.
“I am thankful that they’re still alive, but they’ve got a long road ahead of them,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a briefing late Wednesday, hours after the gunman opened fire at the Feather River Adventist School in Oroville.
The attack unfolded at around 1 p.m. that afternoon, after the suspected shooter had a “cordial” meeting with the principal over enrolling a child at the school. Authorities said he’d been dropped off there by an Uber driver, who police are currently interviewing.
“Shortly after concluding that meeting, the principal heard shots being fired, heard screams, and that’s when they determined or found that the two students had been shot,” Honea told local NBC affiliate KCRA.
Students were rushed to the school gym, then later brought to nearby Oroville Church of the Nazarene to be reunited with their families.
One student described the chaos to local media.
“I also saw them, the shooter, go across a window, like pacing back and forth. And then we were running to the gym,” sixth-grader Jocelyn Orlando told KCRA. “I looked back and I saw a shadow with a gun so I told most people to run even faster.”
Jocelyn helped her teacher comfort the younger students as they hunkered down, even as she feared for her own life.
“I was thinking to myself, what if I get shot, what will happen to my family, what will happen to me,” she told CBS affiliate KOVR. “I told the kindergarteners to take deep breaths and think of something happy.”
Police arrived within two minutes, finding the gunman dead in the school’s playground, next to a handgun, Honea said. Authorities were withholding his identity while they tried to contact his family.
While the man had no apparent connection to the small, private Christian school itself, he may have targeted it because of its religious affiliation, authorities said, without giving further details.
“Whether or not this is a hate crime, or whether or not it’s part of some sort of larger scheme, at this point I don’t have enough information to provide an answer to that,” Honea said.
The shooting shook up the 5,500-population town of Palermo, about 65 miles north of Sacramento, and had Seventh-Day Adventist institutions on edge. Reactions reached as far as New York, where the New York Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists expressed support and sorrow.
“Brethren, we want to ask for prayers for all connected with the Feather River Adventist School in California,” the group said in a social media statement. “Let’s be vigilant, as the devil is active everywhere, and keeping ourselves connected with prayer.”
The Northern California Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists said they were “deeply saddened” by the events and grateful to the sheriff’s office for its quick action.
The One in Five Foundation, a nonprofit originally created as the Uvalde Foundation for Kids after the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas, announced Thursday it would honor Jocelyn with a National Heroism Award for her actions.
“This young lady, despite the chaos of the situation and her own fears, took on a role many adults would not have,” founder Daniel Chapin said in a statement. “Jocelyn helped maintain calm and security for other students in the face of a situation no one is expected to understand. This young lady is an example for students and adults alike nationwide.”
With News Wire Services
