Two 16-year-old boys have been killed and two more teens have been injured in a shooting outside a school in Chicago.
Police in Illinois are hunting the shooter following the incident by Benito Juarez High School in the Pilsen neighbourhood of the Illinois city on Friday afternoon.
The shooting happened at about 2.45pm local time when classes were leaving the school for the day, according to local media.
Three boys aged 16 and a 15-year-old girl were hit outside the school, confirmed Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
All four were taken to Stroger Hospital with one of the boys dead on arrival and another has also now died after being in "traumatic arrest" when he reached the hospital.
The other two victims are said to be in a stable condition.
Police are now reportedly looking for a suspect who was wearing a black mask, black hoodie and black North Face jacket, and was seen running along Cermak Road and up Ashland Avenue.
Supt David Brown told reporters that the suspect has not been identified yet while he was also unable to give more details on the victims of the shooting.
“We are early in this investigation,” Supt Brown added.
A student has told how he was waiting outside the school when he heard the shots ring out.
“It was crazy,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I heard two shots and then everyone started running and went inside.”
There were many witnesses as kids were rushing out of the school at the end of the day.
“It was packed outside,” another reportedly said. “I only heard three shots but already there were two people on the ground.”
An anti-violence worker Guillermo Niño told how he had been working with victims of gun violence for 15 years but on this occasion he received a call from his daughter who attends the school, reported the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Daddy, there’s a shooting going on here,” she reportedly told him, while calling from a teacher’s car where she was hiding.
He later arrived at the scene to check she was okay and said: “Are my kids going to be scared to come to school? This is supposed to be a safe haven. For them to have to be running to survive a shooting, it’s not cool.”
