PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 9 -- A 16-year-old youth who sprayed his high school with bullets, hitting a fellow student in the leg and then turning the gun on himself, died of head wounds Friday, hospital officials said. Authorities said the teen, who attended the private Mid-Peninsula High School where the shootings occurred Thursday, was troubled and had tried to commit suicide in the past.
His name was not released; nor was the name of his victim, who was treated and released at the Stanford University Medical Center on Thursday. Stanford spokesman Hassaun Jones-Bey said he did not know exactly what time the teenager died, but he was pronouned dead Friday afternoon. The Mid-Peninsula High School asked grief counselors to return next week to help students at the small private school cope with yesterday's shooting. Some students told officials the shooter had been asking for a gun, but they failed to report him to school officials because they feared he would be punished. Now that the boy is dead, some of the students feel a sense of responsibility for the suicide, the school said. The incident began at 10:52 a.m. when the student reportedly drove onto the schoolyard and sprayed the building with bullets from a .38- caliber pistol, Officer Tami Gage said. One stray bullet hit a 14-year-old male student, police said, and then the youth shot himself in the head. Gage said police did not believe the shooter singled out the other student. 'It's apparently a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,' Gage said. 'There is no motive that we can determine.'
