1 killed, 4 injured in US high school shooting

An armed student Monday opened fire at his fellow schoolmates in a cafeteria of Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, U.S. , leaving one student dead and four others injured. 

Panicked students of the Chardon High School comfort each other following the shooting accident in the cafereria.

Witnesses told CNN that he walked up to a table of four students he may have known and began shooting.

The shooter, identified by local paper Cleveland Plain Dealer as student TJ Lane, allegedly brought a 22-caliber handgun into the school cafeteria, and started shooting just after 7:30 a.m.

As the shooting started, a brave teacher chased the shooter out of the school with about 1,100 students, and the police locked down the campus while students found shelter inside classrooms.

After the shooting, three of the victims were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland by Metro LifeFlight. Two of the victims were taken to Cleveland Clinic's Hillcrest Hospital. At an afternoon news conference, Chardon Police Chief Tim McKenna said that one of the victims, 16-year-old Daniel Parmertor, had died.

According to Hillcrest, the victims being treated there are a 17-year-old boy who is listed in serious condition and an 18-year-old girl listed in stable condition. McKenna said that the other two victims were both in critical condition.

Police say they arrested the suspect later in the township of Chardon, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the brave teacher by saying "if it were not for the extraordinary courage of a teacher who chased the shooter out of the school, and if not for the speedy reaction of school leaders, the toll of these shootings could have been even worse."

The statement called the shooting "an unspeakable tragedy," but said it's still "too early to know yet why a student took a firearm to school and shot his classmates."

McKenna said that the police is still investigating the shooting and the investigation is likely going to be very long, as authorities have to conduct hundreds of interviews and listen to hours of 911 calls regarding the shooting.