By Bill Bush and Jim Woods, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Two Linden-McKinley STEM Academy students were shot in a drive-by attack just as school was letting out Thursday afternoon.
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Sgt. Rich Weiner, spokesman for the Columbus Police Division, said the boys are 12 and 15 years old, and that both are now stable at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Their names haven’t yet been released.
Students leaving the school — including one of the injured — fled back into the school around 2:40 p.m. School officials also came out and herded many of the students into the gymnasium, said Caleb Lewis, a 14-year-old Linden freshman who was outside when the shooting occurred.
Lewis said he had just walked out of the school and was on Duxberry Avenue when the shots were fired at the two boys, who were between two trees near the intersection of Duxberry Avenue and Dresden Street. A car went by, Lewis said, and he heard at least four gunshots come from the car. He said that one boy was hit in the chest. Other students said they heard at least eight gunshots.
A 17-year-old senior from Linden-McKinley said he saw at least one person, and maybe two, shoot from the back seat of a gray car that was traveling south on Dresden.
He called the shooting gang-related and said a group of students outside saw the gray car and someone yelled at it, “Man, you’re not supposed to be in this part of town!” and made a reference to a person who was killed a year or two ago. He said he then watched as at least seven shots fired from the car.