Shooting reported at high school in California

TAFT, Calif. (AP) - A teacher and a staffer are being praised for helping to diffuse a shooting at a Taft, Cal., high school.

A 16-year-old student was talked into surrendering after shooting another student with a shotgun and shooting at another.

The sheriff of Kern County, Calif., says the 16-year-old student that was shot is in critical but stable condition. A teacher struck by a pellet declined treatment.

Sheriff Donny Youngblood says the shooter is a student who walked into a class at Taft Union High School Thursday morning and shot the teen with a shotgun, and then fired at another student but missed. A teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head.

Youngblood says the teacher tried to get other students out a back door, then he and another staff member engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, and convinced him to put down the gun.

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