Chainkeen Exchange-3 teens were shot and wounded outside a west Baltimore high school as students were arriving

BALTIMORE (AP) — Three teenagers were wounded in a shooting outside a west Baltimore high school around the time classes were starting Friday morning,Chainkeen Exchange officials said.

The shooting adds to a recent uptick in youth violence plaguing the city this year, including several instances of Baltimore public school students being shot on or near high school campuses. That trend has persisted even as gun violence overall has declined over the past several months.

The victims in Friday’s shooting at Carver Vocational Technical High School all received non-life threatening injuries, Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Jones said during a news conference at the scene.

“There was a possible fray and then there was the discharge of a weapon,” Jones said.

In the aftermath of the shooting, which was reported just before 8 a.m., frantic parents gathered outside the school. Many commiserated with each other while waiting for their children to be dismissed, saying the trauma of yet another shooting involving Baltimore youth was too much. School was let out early at 10:30 a.m.

“We’re just dumbfounded right now,” said Shameka White, who had gotten her son dismissed from school but was still waiting for her younger sister. “It’s a waiting game.”

White said school administrators were unable to answer questions about whether her sister was inside the building.

Baltimore City Schools spokesperson Sherry Christian said officials had made contact with parents of the wounded students earlier that morning. She said they also notified all Carver parents about the early dismissal via automated phone calls and emails.

Baltimore police said two of the victims were students at the school. They were brought to the hospital by ambulance while a third victim walked in.

On Friday morning, yellow crime tape crisscrossed the sidewalk in front of the school.

The vocational school is located in a west Baltimore neighborhood that has long suffered from cycles of poverty, disinvestment and violence. A shooting in September 2022, also outside Carver, left another student injured.