Six children shot leaving school bus in Las Vegas

United States: Six children were shot and wounded in Las Vegas yesterday after getting off a school bus, but none of the injuries was life-threatening, police said.

Initial reports said the six high school students had just stepped off a school bus when at least two suspects opened fire on them from a car parked across the street.

"The original report said that [witnesses] heard four to five shots and saw two children on the ground.

"Seconds later we got another call that another person heard about 10 gunshots and saw four kids [fall]," Las Vegas Police spokesman Ramon Denby said.

"A total of six children, all of them high schoolers, have been shot," Mr Denby said.

"All of the injuries are non-life-threatening and all of the victims have been transported to the trauma centre and are seeing doctors there."

A spokeswoman for University Medical Center in Las Vegas, where the victims had been transported, declined to comment.

The incident followed two other highly publicised gun tragedies in recent days.

Last weekend there were two shootings at a Christian Missionary training centre and a church in Colorado in which a 24-year-old man, Matthew Murray, killed four people and then himself.

On the previous Wednesday, in a shopping mall rampage in Omaha, Nebraska, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed eight people and then himself with an assault rifle.

Mr Denby said police had detained five or six people for questioning but had not arrested any suspects and could not yet provide a description of the two assailants, other than to say that they were male. He said gang investigators were on the scene but that a motive had not yet been established for the shooting. - (Reuters)

© 2007 The Irish Times

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