[StBernard] Chalmette shooting prompts school lockdown

[Westley Annis]

Chalmette shooting prompts school lockdown
by The Times-Picayune 
Tuesday September 16, 2008, 3:34 PM
A shooting near Andrew Jackson Elementary School in Chalmette this afternoon
prompted authorities to lock the campus down. 

A teen-ager was shot inside an apartment in the 200 block of Eighth Street
and transported to University Hospital in New Orleans, authorities said. The
teen was struck in the side of the head but was conscious at the scene,
authorities said. 

St. Bernard Parish schools Superintendent Doris Voitier said the shooting
occurred around the same time as dismissal, around 3:15 p.m. Because school
officials and the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office had locked down the
campus, children were not allowed to leave until around 4 p.m. 

Voitier stressed the shooting did not happen on school grounds and said no
one at the school was injured. 

Steve Cannizaro, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said deputies are
searching for the gunman. He said the victim, a male of either 16 or 17,
would not talk to deputies. 

The teen lived in the apartment with his mother, who was not at home,
Cannizaro said. Because the apartment is close to the school and the gunman
was at large, the first deputy to the scene called for the school to be
locked down "out of an abundance of caution," Cannizaro said.