A 14-year-old girl who shot and injured another female student then killed herself at a Texas high school on Sept. 8, had "intended" to shoot her 14-year-old stepbrother, police said Tuesday.
The freshman student at Alpine High School in Alpine, entered the woman's restroom with her backpack that contained a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun that she had brought from her house, along with 18 rounds of ammunition, on the morning of Thursday, Sept. 8, according to the Alpine Police Department.
Investigators later determined that she had intended to shoot her 14-year-old stepbrother and then shoot herself inside the school.
Police said her "plan was interrupted" when a 17-year-old female student walked into the restroom and saw her with the handgun. As the 17-year-old ducked and ran, the 14-year-old began shooting at her and hit her once in the lower body, police said. She then turned the gun on herself, killing herself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police said she fired a total of five rounds.
A law enforcement official was also injured by friendly fire.
According to Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson, the Alpine High School principal, who happens to be the wife of Alpine's chief of police, called the Alpine Police Department about a shooting at the school.
After arriving on the scene, the Sheriff's Department found what they first thought was a shooting victim but turned out to be the shooter.
One officer was shot in an "accidental discharge" between Homeland Security and the US Marshals, according to Dodson.
On Tuesday, police said that the 14-year-old was not bullied and bullying was not a factor in the incident, according to the evidence and interviews of nearly all the 290 students at Alpine High School.
"We didn’t plan on standing in front of y’all telling a story like this," Dodson said when asked if any incident of this nature has occurred in the small Texas town of nearly 6,000 residents.
Police also investigated several bomb threats, including one at nearby Sul Ross State University. Those threats are likely due to "prank calls," Dodson said, adding that authorities were taking all threats seriously.
The confirmed information was first reported by NewsWest9.
A spokesperson for Big Bend Regional Medical Center told BuzzFeed News that the hospital was treating two injured individuals.
Pete Gallego, a former Texas state representative and U.S. congressman, tweeted asking people to keep Alpine "in your prayers this morning."