Eighty-seventh school shooting since Sandy Hook leaves two dead at Marysville Pilchuck

Today, some of the worst fears of par­ents, teach­ers, and stu­dents in Sno­homish Coun­ty’s sec­ond largest city were real­ized when a stu­dent, said to be a fresh­man and a mem­ber of the Tualip Tribe, opened fire in the cafe­te­ria of Marysville Pilchuck High School, killing and wound­ing sev­er­al peo­ple before appar­ent­ly tak­ing his own life. The tragedy unfold­ed at about 10:45 AM, accord­ing to news reports.

The tragedy is the eighty-sev­enth school shoot­ing in Amer­i­ca since the night­mare that took place in New­town at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary in Decem­ber of 2012. Yes, you read that cor­rect­ly: the eighty-sev­enth. The com­plete list is avail­able here.

The alleged per­pe­tra­tor is dead and the wound­ed have been tak­en to area hos­pi­tals, chiefly Prov­i­dence in Everett. One gun­shot vic­tim was tak­en to Har­borview Med­ical Cen­ter in Seat­tle; report­ed­ly, he was shot in the jaw.

Police are been per­form­ing what’s called a grid search, after ear­li­er com­plet­ing a pre­lim­i­nary sweep of the cam­pus, which is rather large. (More than two thou­sand stu­dents attend the high school). They now con­sid­er the cam­pus secure.

Said the district:

We are active­ly work­ing with law enforce­ment in iden­ti­fy­ing stu­dents and get­ting them home safely.

A stu­dent reuni­fi­ca­tion cen­ter is locat­ed at the cor­ner of 116th and 51st Street at the Shoultes Com­mu­ni­ty Church. Sup­port ser­vices for stu­dents and fam­i­lies are also avail­able at this location.

All after school events have been can­celled district-wide.

This is an active police inves­ti­ga­tion. All media calls are being direct­ed to local law enforce­ment. Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion will be released as it becomes available.

We want to extend our thoughts and prayers to the fam­i­lies involved in this tragedy. When some­thing hap­pens to one of our chil­dren, it hap­pens to all of us. We are work­ing close­ly with law enforce­ment.  Our thoughts are with all stu­dents, fam­i­lies, staff, and our com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing this time.

Schools are sup­posed to be places of learn­ing, com­fort, and safe­ty. But today, Marysville Pilchuck High School turned into the site of a tragedy and a crime scene, like so many oth­er schools before it. We are pray­ing for the young peo­ple who are wound­ed and the good doc­tors and nurs­es who are try­ing to save them. May those med­ical pro­fes­sion­als be suc­cess­ful, and may their patients make a full recovery.

But thoughts and prayers are not enough. We can’t allow these tragedies to con­tin­ue to unfold, and not talk about the need for action to pre­vent any more of them. Right now, there is some­thing that every one of us who is reg­is­tered to vote in Wash­ing­ton State can DO. We can vote NO on I‑591, and YES on I‑594.

The defeat of 591 and pas­sage of 594 will bring uni­ver­sal back­ground checks to Wash­ing­ton State. By itself, I‑594 will not end gun vio­lence, but it will make a dif­fer­ence. Pas­sage of 594 will pre­vent peo­ple from buy­ing guns in Wash­ing­ton with no ques­tions asked. I‑594 will save lives.

Of course, there’s more we need to do. But it is with­in our pow­er as a peo­ple to take this first step. These ini­tia­tives are before us, in our capac­i­ty as cit­i­zen law­mak­ers. Let’s change the law and make our com­mu­ni­ties safer by vot­ing NO on I‑591 and YES on I‑594.

As Shan­non Watts (founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in Amer­i­ca) said today: “Amer­i­cans are tired of watch­ing news heli­copter footage of our chil­dren being led out of their schools – a place where they should be safe from the gun vio­lence that kills eighty-six Amer­i­cans every day.”

“After the tragedy at Sandy Hook, we start­ed count­ing shoot­ings in Amer­i­can schools and today’s is the 87th —three of which have occurred in Wash­ing­ton. Our chil­dren and teach­ers should not be the front­line of Amer­i­ca’s gun vio­lence. This is unac­cept­able.  We need to do every­thing we can — and demand our lead­ers do the same — to pre­vent the next tragedy.” 

Leah Bern­stein, a Moms Demand Action mem­ber in Wash­ing­ton, agreed.

“As a moth­er with kids in school just miles down the road from Marysville, my heart is bro­ken for the stu­dents and fac­ul­ty of Marysville-Pilchuck High School, and for the entire com­mu­ni­ty. When we send our kids to school each day, we shouldn’t have to wor­ry about whether the next shoot­ing will be at their school. As moth­ers com­mit­ted to reduc­ing gun vio­lence, all of our thoughts and prayers are with these chil­dren and their fam­i­lies in the wake of this awful tragedy.”