"Hard to forget": Saugus High School shooting witness saw "a body fall"
The Southern California high school where a student shot five of his fellow students and himself Thursday, has conducted lockdown drills in the past. But many of the more than 2,000 students at Saugus High School said they never thought they would have to put their training to use, CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti reports.
"At first I thought it was fake," student Micah Turner said.
Turner had just arrived at the school quad Thursday morning when gun shots rang out. The suspected gunman Nathaniel Berhow, a 10th grader, had pulled a gun from his backpack and started shooting, killing a 14-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl and injuring three others. Berhow then turned the semi-automatic pistol on himself. He was hospitalized in critical condition.
"I just saw him fire one, two, three," Turner said. "I just saw just a body fall and my first instinct was to get out of there and to find my sister."
Amidst the chaos, her sister Samara was hiding in a classroom. "I was just like freaking out because I heard the gunshots loud and clear," Samara Turner said. "It left a little ring in my ear."
Jeff Turner had just returned home from dropping them off at school when he heard the news from his wife. "She hops in the truck and says, 'Go back to the park, there's a shooting at the high school.'"
It took about 45 minutes for the family to reunite. "I just started crying hysterically," Samara said about the moment she was reunited with her sister.
"We opened the car door, she got in and then she just jumped on me in the back seat and then I held her for like a good minute or two and we were both just crying and just relieved that we were finally together," Micah said.
"What sticks in your mind as we talk right now?" Vigliotti asked.
"His face. And just seeing that one person fall," Micah said. "It's going to be hard to forget, but I'm going to have to live with that sight in my head."
"I know for a fact this will be with her the rest of her life and it makes me so angry," Jeff Turner said.
Three students remain hospitalized Friday after the shooting. Investigators were trying to determine what Berhow's motive may have been. Thursday was his 16th birthday.