US: 2 dead, 6 injured after St Louis high school shooting, police kill 20-year-old gunman in exchange fire

A gunman broke into a St Louis high school warning, 'You are all going to die!' before fatally shooting a teacher and a teenage girl, and wounding six others before police killed him in an exchange of gunfire.

The attack just after 9 am on Monday at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School forced students to barricade doors and huddle in classroom corners, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety.

Speaking at a news conference, Police Chief Michael Sack said fast actions by a security guard, along with police officers who 'ran to the gunfire' helped end the shooting before more people were killed or hurt. He said the shooter was about 20 years old but did not identify him and said a possible motive wasn't yet known.

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Authorities didn't name the victims, but the St Louis Post-Dispatch identified the dead teacher as Jean Kuczka. Her daughter said her mother was killed when the gunman burst into her classroom and she moved between him and her students.

St Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said seven security guards were in the school at the time of the attack, each stationed at an entrance of the locked building. One of the guards noticed the gunman trying to get in at a locked door, but couldn't. The guard notified school officials, who contacted the police, Sack said.

He declined to say how the man eventually got inside, armed with what he described as a long gun. Central Visual and Performing Arts shares a building with another magnet school, the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience. Central has 383 students, and Collegiate has 336.

Monday's school shooting was the 40th this year resulting in injuries or death, according to a tally by Education Week - the most in any year since it began tracking shootings in 2018. 

The deadly attacks include the killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, when 19 children and two teachers died.

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Monday's St. Louis shooting came on the same day a Michigan teenager pleaded guilty to terrorism and first-degree murder in a school shooting that killed four students in December 2021.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said additional action is needed to stop gun violence.

"Every day that the Senate fails to send an assault weapons ban to the president's desk or waits to take another other common sense actions, is a day too late for families and communities impacted by gun violence," Jean-Pierre said.

The school district placed all of its schools on lockdown for the remainder of the day, and canceled all after-school activities, including sports.