Teacher Accidentally Fires Gun in Classroom and Injures Students
While lecturing about public safety at Seaside High School in California, Dennis Alexander accidentally fired his pistol and injured three students. Bullet fragments ricocheted off the ceiling and hit a 17-year-old student, with two other students being injured by debris.
Fermin Gonzales, the father of the teen who was hit by the bullet fragments, rushed his son to hospital after his son came home from school with blood on his shirt and a neck injury. Gonzales said that “He’s shaken up, but he’s going to be OK, I’m just pretty upset that no one told us anything and we had to call the police ourselves to report it.”
Aside from working as a teacher, Alexander is a reserve officer for Sand City police and a Seaside city councilman. However, after Sand City police department learned of the incident he has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is carried out to determine if he was legally allowed the firearm on a school campus.
“I think a lot of questions on parents’ minds are, why a teacher would be pointing a loaded firearm at the ceiling in front of students,” Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh said. “Clearly in this incident protocols were not followed.”
