An Oroville, California, K-8 religious school was recently hit with a tragedy after a gunman posing as a parent opened fire on the campus, striking two kindergartners.
On Wednesday, the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists was in the middle of a regular day when the incident occurred. Reports state that the shooter, Glenn Litton, 56, arrived at the school in an Uber and met with an administrator about potentially enrolling a child before firing shots. Students and staff members at the academy reacted to the shooting quickly as the situation unfolded.
“I told the kindergarteners to take deep breaths and think of something happy,” sixth grader Jocelyn Orlando told CBS News. “We were going in from lunch recess, and basically everyone in my classroom heard shooting, and most people were screaming.”
Luckily, authorities were able to evacuate the students and teachers from the building to a nearby church, where the children were reunited with their families.
“Just being able to be with parents as they pulled into the parking lot, waiting for news from the authorities and waiting for their children to come on a bus — just the anguish and the turmoil in their hearts broke my heart,” Pastor Travis Marshall of the Oroville Church of the Nazarene said to CapRadio.
While the majority of the student body was unharmed, two kindergartners, Roman Mendez, 6, and Elias Wolfard, 5, were wounded from the shooting and transported to a Sacramento trauma center, where they remain in “critical but stable condition.” Mendez suffered two gunshot wounds, while Wolfard was hit once in the abdomen.
As far as the shooter, Litton died on the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Additionally, Sheriff Kory L. Honea stated that authorities believe that the man targeted the school due to its religious teachings but did not have any prior connections to the campus or the victims.
