APOPKA, Fla. — A teen was shot right outside an Orange County high school Wednesday morning during a fight with a student and an administrator, and the teen shot is one of the suspects.
AT THE SCENE: Images Of School, Police
The shooting happened at Sheeler Charter High School on State Road 436 in Apopka (see map) . The school is actually located inside a strip mall and some neighbors told WFTV that provides easy access to trouble.
The school has a security guard and a metal detector, but the suspects jumped a student in the parking lot.
Within an hour of a shooting, anxious parents were ready to retrieve their children from their classrooms.
"I'm a parent, and when I say my child's coming out of there she's out of there, no matter who's out here," parent Paul Helmick said.
Helmick's daughter Jenny should have been concentrating on the FCAT. Instead, she was giving a witness statement to Apopka police about the fight in front of her charter school that erupted in gunfire. Wednesday afternoon, she was still visibly shaken.
"I'm withdrawing tomorrow," she told WFTV.
Two teens, who are not students at Sheeler, jumped Helmick's classmate right in front of a school administrator. He managed to break up the fight, but not before a shot was fired, hitting one of the two suspects. They quickly took off, but were followed by that school administrator.
"He got in his vehicle and followed them. They tried to lose him in the subdivision here off to our east. They went back onto 436 and he followed them onto 436," said Cpt. Jerome Miller, Apopka Police Department.
The administrator was able to relay that information to police, who took one suspect into custody and transported the other to Orlando Regional Medical Center; the 17-year-old's injuries aren't life threatening.
The injured teen, whose name has not been released, faces misdemeanor battery and trespassing charges. His friend, identified as 17-year-old Rodrick Brown, is facing felony charges for carrying a weapon on school grounds, firing a weapon in public, and disrupting a school function.
When police caught up with the two suspects, they also located the gun that was fired.
This is FCAT week and students at Sheeler take the test; some said they were at the time of the shooting.
Sheeler officials would not comment on camera, and neither would officials with Orange County Schools. While Sheeler is in Orange County, a spokesman said it is not officially part of the county school system.
The Orange County district sponsors Sheeler as a charter school, which allows it to accept money from the Florida Department of Education, receiving the same per-student funding as provided to traditional public schools.
But how the school is run and how its students are taught is decided by the charter's board of directors, which hires the teachers, administrators, and staff. Sheeler is described as a school that meets the needs of over-aged, under-credited, at-risk students.
The organization running Sheeler lists 13 schools on its website, ten in Florida, including three in Orange County, two in Texas, and one in Pennsylvania.
Security at the school does not come under the authority of the Orange County School District, and local administrators would not talk about safety measures taken at the school. The principal did send a one-page note home with students describing what happened.
WFTV
