Woman and teen killed in Missouri school shooting

A woman and a teenage girl were killed after an armed man broke into a high school in St Louis, Missouri.

Six other people were hospitalized, some suffering from gunshot wounds and others hit by shrapnel, according to police.

The shooter, described as a man in his 20s, was shot and killed by police.

Gunfire first erupted shortly after 9 a.m. at the city's Central High School for Visual and Performing Arts Monday morning.

Hundreds of students and teachers were forced to barricade themselves in classrooms, jump out of windows and run from the building to safety.

Police Commissioner Mike Sack said school security became alarmed when the shooter attempted to enter the locked building.

After the shooter opened fire, officers “ran toward that gunshot, located the shooter and engaged in an exchange of gunfire with him,” killing him, he said.

Mr. Sack declined to name the victims and did not say whether the woman killed was a teacher.

The FBI has since said in a statement that there was no longer an “immediate threat” at the school.

Face to face with the killer

One student, Taniya Gholston, 16, told the local St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper that she was in a room when the shooter entered.

“All I heard was two gunshots and he came in with a gun,” she said. “And I was trying to run and I couldn’t run.

“He and I made eye contact, but I got away because his gun was jammed. But we saw blood on the floor.”

Another student, Nylah Jones, said she was in math class when the shooter opened fire into the room from the hallway. She was saved because the shooter was unable to enter the classroom.

The Lycée Central des Arts Visuels et du Performing specializes in the arts and has approximately 400 students.