Two students at Benjamin Franklin High School in Curtis Bay were shot on Friday in a nearby alleyway and suffered what law enforcement described as non-life-threatening injuries, Baltimore Police and Baltimore City Public Schools reported.
The Baltimore Police Department said the victims were a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. The girl was shot in the lower back and the boy was shot in the right ankle.
Law enforcement, based on a preliminary investigation, reported that someone walked up to a group of teens after 2 p.m. on Cambria Street near West Bay Avenue and opened fire without warning.
The shooting comes after five students at Edmondson-West High School were shot — one of them fatally — on Wednesday at a shopping center across the street.
Students at Benjamin Franklin High School were dismissed early. Families of the victims have been notified, the school system said.
Outside Benjamin Franklin High School, John Davis, chief of schools for the district, said it is “absolutely horrific and tragic” any time students are victims of gun violence.
The school, he said, was on lockdown for about one hour. Davis said it was “basically the last period of the day.”
Davis said the school system is preparing for Monday and will have crisis support services on hand for students and their families as well as staff members.
Benjamin Franklin High School already has a “very strong team of mental health support,” he said, but will bring an extra social worker and psychologist.
He said he is not sure why the students were not in class. Students are not allowed to leave the campus.
”The safest place for a student to be is in the classroom, in their school. That’s being proven out all the time,” Davis said. “It is way more safe to be inside the classroom than it is to be out in the community.”
Educators, he said, come in every day because they want to serve students and see them walk out and live great lives.
“When kids fall victim of gun violence,” Davis said, “it is just reeling for anyone that’s involved.”
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