MISSION, Kan. (AP) — An 18-year-old football player was charged Saturday in a shooting that wounded an administrator and a school resource officer at a suburban Kansas City high school.
The Johnson County prosecutor’s office announced Saturday that Jaylon Desean Elmore is charged with attempted capital murder in the shooting Friday at Olathe East High School. His bond is set at $1 million and no first appearance has been set.
The prosecutor’s office didn’t immediately respond Saturday to questions about whether Elmore has an attorney, and none is listed for him in online court records.
Online records show he has a previous conviction for aggravated robbery. His attorney in that case, Jaclynn J.B. Moore, declined to comment.
Olathe police Sgt. Joel Yeldell said the resource officer notified dispatch over the radio just after 10:30 a.m. Friday that he and an administrator had been shot and wounded by a student in the office. Yeldell said the officer said he returned fire, shooting and wounding the student.
All three were taken to Overland Park Regional Medical Center, where one of them remained in critical condition Saturday. The other two have been discharged.
Elmore, who is listed as a 6-foot tall (1.83 meters), 185 pounds (84 kilograms) senior on the school’s varsity football roster, is not currently listed as a jail inmate. Authorities haven’t yet publicly identified the person still in the hospital or released details of the injuries.
Police have not released a motive, and the prosecutor’s office didn’t provide a probable cause affidavit. The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return phone messages from The Associated Press.
The sheriff’s office identified the resource officer on Twitter as Erik Clark, who has 15 years of service and seven years as a school resource officer.
And Kansas Sen. Cindy Holscher, who has a student at Olathe East, identified the wounded administrator in a tweet as Kaleb Stoppel, the high school’s athletic director and assistant principal. This is Stoppel’s last year in the role; he is to leave in July to become the athletic director for the Wichita district, which is the largest in Kansas.
Superintendent Brent Yeager said in a video that was released on Twitter that the shooting at Olathe East High School, which has an enrollment of 1,900, had “brought to reality a situation that we have prepared for but hoped we would never have to face as an Olathe community.”
After gunfire erupted, the school was put on lockdown and anxious parents waited at a middle school to be reunited with their children.
“Please know that the safety as well as the emotional well being of our students, staff and our families is our top priority right now as we care for our community,” Yeager said, urging the community to hug their loved ones “a little tighter.”
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