Saugus High School students reunited with their parents following a shooting on their campus on Thursday that killed two people and wounded three others.
Seventeen-year-old football player Sean Murillo said he was walking toward his coach’s office when he heard shots about 10 feet away and ducked into a classroom.
“We just went into lockdown after that. We heard the announcements, so we just sat in the room and just waited,” he said.
Murillo later met his mother at a designated point for parents and students to reunite at Santa Clarita’s Central Park.
“Even though you know they’re safe by text, there’s really not a feeling of safety until they’re in your arms,” Mercedes Rodrigues, his mother, said.
Taylor Hardge said that she didn’t hear the gunshots, but saw people running in the hallways.
“Someone in my class yelled ‘run’ so we just ran. We ran into a different classroom. I don’t even know where we went, but we just ran. They barricaded us. There was a guy, he, he took control.”
Her father, Terrence Hardge, said his daughter texted him from inside the classroom. He said he was casually scrolling through his texts when he saw it.
“She said (via text) ‘I love you, I’m pinned in a room, we’re locked in a room, we’re blocked in’ and my heart sank. My wife was there. I said, ‘We have got to get to the school.'”
According to law enforcement officials, the teen suspect died on Friday from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Investigators are still searching for what drove the student to open fire on his classmates.
Two victims—Grace Anne Muehlberger, 15, and Dominic Blackwell, 14—died at a hospital.
