UPDATE at 11:00am: Police also confirmed the shooter was a 12-year-old 7th-grader at Sparks Middle School.
UPDATE at 10:30am: Nevada police believe the student who killed a teacher and wounded two 12-year-olds at Sparks Middle School Monday got the gun he used in the shooting from his home.
Police identified the gun as a Ruger 9mm semi-automatic. They say the shooter's family could face charges.
Meanwhile, the Nevada National Guard is holding a news conference at Noon. Guard member and former Marine Michael Landsberry is the 45-year-old math teacher killed Monday after trying to intervene in the shooting.
ORIGINAL STORY: An early morning shooting at a middle school in Sparks, Nevada has left one teacher and one student dead and two other students injured.
At 7:16 AM Monday, Marianne Broberg woke up. She lives next to Sparks Middle School. “I heard the first police car come in and then I heard sirens all over town and I automatically assumed it was a shooting.”
She was right. Eventually, 200 officers arrived. “We got there and the kids were running out, they were scared, they were freaked out,” says Deputy Reno Police Chief Tom Robinson.
A student used a semi-automatic handgun to shoot one student in the abdomen and another in the shoulder. Both are in stable condition.
But 45-year-old math teacher Michael Landsberry, a former Marine, was killed when he tried to intervene. Robinson calls him a hero: “It was courage, I will leave it at that for now, but he had some courage.”
The student then shot himself. It was all over in less than five minutes.
Afterwards, firefighters cleaned the bloody playground with soap and water. Police didn't offer a motive, but that didn't stop parents like Jennifer Montes and her daughter from searching for one. “She said that she knows the shooter,” Montes says. “I guess he was a victim of bullying.”
Superintendent Pedro Martinez was on the brink of tears all day. He said the fear of a school shooting - like so many others across the country - has always been on his mind. “But I don’t think you ever realize how it is going to affect you until it happens.”
Sparks Middle School and an elementary school that shares the playground will remain closed for the rest of the week as the investigation continues.
A Facebook page created after the shooting to remember the shooting victims has more than 18,000 "Likes" as of late Monday.
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