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NEWTON, Miss.--The student who shot himself in a Newton High School classroom Friday has died. The name of the 17-year-old student will not be released.
News Mississippi first learned of the shooting shortly after it happened, just after 1 p.m. Friday. It was in an empty classroom, according to the information we've been able to gather. The student, who was new to the school, used a .22 caliber pistol. It is unclear how the student was able to get the gun into the school.
After the shooting, the student was transported to a Jackson hospital, via air ambulance. The student died Saturday.
The death comes just days after National Suicide Prevention week, a national effort aimed at cutting the suicide rate. News Mississippi has a story planned this week on the efforts of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health on cutting down on youth suicide.
Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in Mississippi for young people ages 15-24.
The MS High School Survey for Youth Risk Behavior (2007) reported that 13.4%
of students seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months and 10.6% of students
made a plan about how they would commit suicide in the past 12 months.The following video is from the DMH website:
As a policy, News Mississippi does not normally report on suicides, but in this case the victim involved classmates and teachers in the incident.
