Teen shot at Atlanta middle school

ATLANTA -- A student opened fire at his middle school yesterday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to take the gun away, police said.

Multiple shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown around 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.

The wounded boy was taken "alert, conscious and breathing" to Grady Memorial Hospital, said a police spokesman.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.

Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors. "The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?" Davis asked about the gun. "That's something we do not know yet."

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off duty and at the school, but police didn't offer details on him or whether he is regularly at Price.

Hours later, buses full of children pulled away from the school and stopped in front of a church a half-block away. As parents tried boarding the buses, police who initially tried to stop them relented and screamed, "Let them off!" about the students.