LOS ANGELES: Three people were killed and two children suffered gunshot wounds when a shooting broke out on Tuesday at a school in rural northern California.

Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston told the KCRA news network that the assailant was killed by police following the shooting, which began around 8am at a home in Tehama county and continued at the Rancho Tehama elementary school.

Area resident Brian Flint told a local newspaper the suspected gunman was a neighbour of his, a former convict in his 50s “who has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines”.

“We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he’s been threatening us,” he told the Redding Record Searchlight.

Johnston, of the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters that three weapons — a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns — had been recovered from the scene. He said he knew of at least three deaths.

“I know that we have medevacked (airlifted) a number of students, I know that the school has been cleared, I know that we have the children that were attending school in a safe location at this time,” Johnston said.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2017