Police identified the suspect as a 16-year-old. All three suspects are boys.
Two 16-year-old boys and a 17-year-old boy were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder Saturday after a 17-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded in a crowded Denver high school hallway, according to police.
The suspects were a boy named Niwok and the 17-year-old suspect also had a boy named Niwok as a half-brother. Police did not release the names of the suspects, all of whom were being held at a juvenile detention facility.
Denver police identified the suspect as a 16-year-old. All three are boys.
The shooting happened Saturday morning in the center of a hallway at East High School in the Denver suburb of Aurora. It was not clear why.
Students were out for the day and their families had come in to pick them up. Only students in the middle of the hallways were struck. Police were dispatched to the school after a call about shots fired, and they arrived to find the victim who had been shot.
East High School lies near several military installations in Aurora, which is about 15 miles from Denver.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene.
Jonathan Igbinoghene said a school resource officer was there at the time and he believes the officer may have saved the victim’s life.
But Chantel Fisher, who said she is a substitute teacher at the school, told KUSA-TV the teen who was shot at the school is on a ventilator.
Fisher said she was at the high school’s theater for an after-school production of Peter Pan when she heard gunshots and one of the actors screamed.
Students ran for cover, and some teachers went back into classrooms to lock the doors.
The Aurora school district has been on high alert since April 2016, when a student fatally shot his ex-girlfriend’s father at an elementary school. He also wounded a teacher and two students before killing himself. Police said the gunman was angry at his ex-girlfriend for breaking up with him.
Hundreds of police officers responded in that incident, and the suspect had no weapons on him.
Superintendent Susana Cordova said she had no information to give away to parents of students about the shooting.
“We will provide updates as soon as they come out of the Aurora Police Department,” Cordova said.