Teenager wounded in Atlanta shooting

A student is greeted by a family member after getting off a school bus near Price Middle School following a shooting at the school in Atlanta, Georgia.

A student is greeted by a family member after getting off a school bus near Price Middle School following a shooting at the school in Atlanta, Georgia.

Published Feb 1, 2013

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Washington - A teenage student was shot on Thursday at a middle school in Atlanta, Georgia.

The victim was in hospital but “alert”, said police, after the latest gun attack against young Americans.

In a statement posted on their Facebook page, Atlanta police said the victim, whom they did not identify, was shot outside Price Middle School, and was “transported alert, conscious and breathing to Grady hospital”.

US media reported that the victim was a 14-year-old male.

The police also said a suspect had been taken into custody.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed condemned the shooting and others like it as “unconscionable”, and said gun attacks in and around US schools “must end”.

“Too many young people are being harmed, and too many families are suffering from unimaginable and unnecessary grief,” he added in a message that was posted on the city's website.

The shooting is the latest to occur as the United States wrestles with a spate of gun violence. A shooting last month at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, left 20 young children and six adults dead.

In the wake of that shooting, President Barack Obama vowed to introduce gun reform, a hugely controversial issue in the United States where the right to bear arms in enshrined in the constitution. - Sapa-AFP

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