Teen Attempts Suicide on High School Quad

As about a dozen students watched in horror, a 15-year-old Cypress High School student tried to shoot himself in the head in the school’s quad just before morning classes began Thursday.

The 10th-grade boy suffered only minor wounds because the .38 caliber handgun malfunctioned and the bullet did not completely exit the barrel. He suffered only a cut on his head and powder burns.

Had the gun been working properly, the student would likely have died, Police Sgt. John Avila said.

“It all happened pretty quick,” Avila said. “It was over and done with before anyone could do anything to stop it.”

Avila, a 23-year veteran of the Cypress police force, said he could not recall any student bringing a handgun onto the Cypress High School campus before. The school does not have metal detectors.

Fellow students have been offered counseling--about 100 were in the quad area--but Avila said school officials are most concerned with those who were standing nearest to the teen and witnessed the incident.

“We had counseling sessions that ran all day,” said Tracy Brennan, school principal. “For those who would like to continue, we will be doing the same thing [today].”

Suicide experts cautioned that such public attempts are worrisome because some teens may be inclined to engage in “copycat” behavior--one of the reasons why counseling troubled youngsters is so important.

Suicide attempts rarely take place in public settings like a high school campus.

“This is going to be a relatively traumatic event for the kids at that school,” said Richard McCleary, professor of environmental health sciences at UC Irvine.

Police and paramedics were called to the scene at 7:30 a.m. The student was taken to a local hospital for treatment, then released for psychological evaluation.

“It is very disturbing that something like this would occur and that a young person would feel so distraught that he would want to end his life,” Brennan said. “He is physically very healthy. But I don’t expect him to return to the school.”

Police officials said they do not yet know how the student obtained the gun or who owned it.