All Seventh-Day Adventist schools in NorCal closed after 2 kindergartners shot
Seventh-Day Adventist schools in NorCal closed after 2 kindergartners shot
All of the schools run by the Northern California Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will be closed on Thursday after two kindergartners were shot and injured at a tiny religious school in Palermo, and the gunman died at the scene, apparently after he killed himself.
PALERMO, Calif. - All the schools run by the Northern California Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will be closed on Thursday after two kindergartners were shot and injured at a tiny religious school in Palermo, and the gunman died at the scene, apparently after he killed himself.
"We are deeply saddened by the events that occurred," said church spokesman Kevin Lampe. "Our students, faculty, and staff at Feather River have been reunited with their families."
He said all the schools in the Northern California region will close for a day to "allow everyone to spend time with their families."
There are dozens of schools all over the Bay Area, including in Alameda, Pleasanton, Oakley, Oakland, Hayward, Antioch and more.
The move comes after a gunman may have targeted the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Palermo in Butte County on Wednesday because of its religious affiliation, but isn’t believed to have had a prior connection to the victims or the school, Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said. He didn’t explain further.
The shooting occurred shortly after 1 p.m. at the private Christian school with fewer than three dozen students in Palermo, which has about 5,500 people and is about 65 miles north of Sacramento.
"Whether or not this is a hate crime or whether or not it’s part of some sort of larger scheme at this point I don’t have enough information to provide an answer to that," he said at a news conference.
The wounded children, boys ages 5 and 6, are kindergarteners at the school and are being treated at a trauma center in the Sacramento area, officials said. They were in critical condition on Wednesday.
Sixth grader Jocelyn Orlando described what happened.
"I saw the shooter pacing back and forth," she said. "I saw a shadow with a gun so I told people to run even faster."
She added that her classmates were screaming and they all went into the office, closed the curtains, locked the doors and then, finally, ran into the gym.
2kindergarteners injured in religious school shooting; suspected gunman dead in Northern California
Two children were wounded Wednesday in a shooting at a tiny religious school in Butte County. Deputies and a CHP officer arrived to find the gunman on the ground, dead after apparently shooting himself.
It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms.
But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws. Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
Honea said the gunman was dropped off by an Uber driver who was interviewed by detectives.
He said the shooter was in a meeting with an administrator about enrolling a child at the school, which he described as "cordial." But it seems that was his first visit to the school and he had no prior connection to the victims. Shortly after that, shots rang out, Honea said.
The gunman’s body was found near the slide and other playground equipment on the grounds of the school, which abuts ranchland where cattle graze. A handgun was found nearby, Honea said.
Honea said they were trying to contact the shooter’s family before releasing his name.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is a Christian denomination in which members consider the Bible their only creed and believe that the second coming of Christ is near. The Feather River School has been open since 1965, according to its website.
After the shooting, authorities rushed students initially to a gymnasium where they stayed until a bus arrived to take them off the grounds and to the Oroville Church of the Nazarene to be reunited with their families, Honea said.
Travis Marshall, the senior pastor for the Oroville Church of the Nazarene, called the reunification between parents and their children "very moving."
"Some of the children were incredibly emotional," he said. "One woman was raising her hands up, praising the Lord" when she found her child.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Oakland and Pleasanton, Calif.