Teen-ager holds elementary school classroom hostage

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) - An armed teen-ager briefly held a classroom full of children and a teacher hostage yesterday at his former elementary school before surrendering to authorities. No one was injured.

The former student at Pioneer Elementary School gave up after talking with members of a police SWAT team, police spokesman Matt Brown said. The standoff in the eighth-grade classroom lasted about an hour.

Brown said the portable classroom was full when the student walked in with a 9 mm handgun, but he gradually let students go. There were still several people in the room at the time the student surrendered.

The school has classes for kindergarten through eighth grades, and the children involved were about 13 or 14 years old, Brown said.

Other students were bused to a high school, where parents could pick them up, and the school was closed.

Courtney Smith, who lives across the street from the school, said she saw the suspect enter the school grounds at about 11:15 a.m. He was wearing camouflage and had a hood over his head, but she did not see a weapon.

"I didn't think anything of it. Next thing we know, there were girls running out of the classroom screaming. They told us there was a kid inside with a gun holding kids hostage," Smith said. "They were hysterical, crying and screaming. They told us he'd threatened to kill them."

Terra Churchill was in her back yard, next to the schoolyard, when she heard the words "Code 9" announced over the loudspeaker. Her three daughters – Whitteny, 8, Britteny, 10, and Tiffeny, 12 – all attend Pioneer.