Taft high school shooting: Shooter targeted bullies

The Taft High School shooting had two intended victims, reported the sheriff in a press conference. Both were students that the shooter felt had bullied him during the previous year.

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Doug Keeler / Taft Midway Driller / AP
Officials cordon off an area outside San Joaquin Valley high school in Taft, Calif. Authorities said a student was shot and wounded and another student was taken into custody.

Authorities say a boy who fired on classmates and wounded one at a rural California high school had planned the attack and targeted students he felt had bullied him for more than a year.

Kern County sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a news conference Thursday night that the 16-year-old used a shotgun that belonged to his brother and went to bed Wednesday night with a plan to shoot two fellow students.

Youngblood says surveillance video shows the boy trying to conceal the gun as he nervously enters Taft Union High School through a side entrance after school had started Thursday morning.

The boy entered his classroom, shot and critically injured one student, then fired on others before a teacher and another staff member talked him into surrendering.

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