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911 tape details minutes after school shooting


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A 911 dispatcher answers calls from E.O. Green School on the morning of February 12.
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A fatal shooting at E.O. Green School in Oxnard led to some initial confusion, but school officials quickly summoned police and located the gun used in the attack, according to a 911 audiotape released this week by the Oxnard Police Department.

At the beginning of the five-minute tape, a caller in the junior high school's office told the 911 dispatcher the school was on lockdown and shots had been fired near Room 42 on the Glacier Avenue side of campus.

The caller, a school employee who was not identified by police, then walked toward the scene of the shooting and tried to glean information from others while on the phone with the dispatcher.

Later, the caller said she believed the shooting was a suicide — a rumor police rejected in the first minutes of the investigation.

About three minutes into the tape, police sirens can be heard in the background. The caller then told the dispatcher a school psychologist had secured the gun.

After finding victim Larry King, 15, alone in the computer lab where the shooting occurred, the psychologist found the gun in the same room and placed it on top of a cabinet, Oxnard police Sgt. Jim Seitz said.

Hueneme School District Superintendent Jerry Dannenberg said the 911 tape shows school staff responded appropriately.

"The important thing for people to understand is the school immediately went into our emergency procedures," Dannenberg said Wednesday.

There were two more 911 calls about the shooting at E.O. Green, but Oxnard police were not releasing them because of the continuing investigation, authorities said.

Within minutes of the report at 8:35 a.m. Feb. 12, police were at E.O. Green and shooting suspect, Brandon McInerney, 14, was arrested a few blocks away.

King was taken to St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. He was pronounced brain-dead the next day.

The gun used in the crime came from McInerney's house, Oxnard Police Chief John Crombach said. Police were still trying to determine how the teen gained access to the small-caliber handgun and who owned it, Crombach said.

McInerney has been charged with first-degree murder and committing a hate crime. He is being held in Juvenile Hall, although prosecutors intend to try him as an adult.

Authorities have declined to elaborate on the hate crime allegation. Some students at E.O. Green said King was openly gay and involved in an ongoing dispute with the suspect.

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