EUGENE, Ore. â Police shot and killed a man who showed up Friday with a gun at an Oregon middle school amid âa custody dispute, authorities said. No one else was injured.
The man had been escorted fromðļ CascadâĻe Middle School in Eugene when he began struggling and pulled a gun, police Lt. Jennifer Bills told reporters. She initially said the shooting was inside the school.
Studeðąnts were locked in classrooms, and the school was lockeð§d down for nearly four hours.
By Friday afternoon, officers were escorting small groups of children to a nearby church where parents hadð gathered.
Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the schoolâs maðin parking lot and a yellow tarp covered the suspectâs body just a few feet from an entrance. HisęĶĄ name was not immediately released.
ââNo students were harmed whatsoever. All the sðļtudents are safe,â Bills said.
Parent Stephanie Martin waited for her two children at the church in Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon about 110 miles (177 kilometers)ð south of Portland.
She said her son, a sixth-grader, called her to say he anðd his sister, a seventh-grader, were OK.
âThe kids are all safe, thatâs all we know. But thatâs all I care ðabout,â Martin ðsaid. âItâs crazy, the world is crazy.â
Andrew Ramos-Aguirre, a sixth-grader at the school, said that when word ofðī the shooting spread, his physical education classroom quickly followed a drill they had practiced.
âWe had to lock down the room, we ðhad to be really quiet, no movement,â Ramos-Aguirre said after he was reunited with his mother, who teared up as she heard her sonâs account.
âI felt afraid and nervous becðŦause there was an intruder at my school,â the boy saidęĐĩ.
The area saw one of the first school shootings to seizðe the national spotlight.
More than 20ð years ago, then 15-year-old Kip Kinkel killed his parents before fatally shooting two students and wounding 26 others at Thurston High School in nearby Springfield. Kinkel remains in prison.