Every shooting at a school in September 2024

Shootings ranged from a planned attack at Apalachee High to police and security officers accidentally shooting themselves on campus.

The 2024-25 school year is not off to a great start. On September 4, there was a planned attack at Apalachee High School in Georgia. This was the first planned attack at k-12 school with more than 8 victims since Perry High (IA) on January 4. Apalachee was just one of 33 shootings at k-12 schools in September.

There were more victims killed and wounded than any other September in the past decade. Even as school increase physical security, the circumstances of these shootings evolve even faster. One example of this problem is two students shot at Pleasure Ridge Park High in Louisville during the varsity football game on September 29. An adult suspect tossed two handguns over the fence into the area under the bleachers and then walked through the security screening at the gate. As schools struggle to find staffing and resources for security checks, there aren’t extra police and security officers to also watch every part of the 1,000-foot fence around a football stadium.

I wrote multiple articles about the shootings at schools in September ranging from data analysis of the Apalachee High shooting to trends with threats, students arrested with guns, and shootings at school sporting events:

• SRO accidentally shot himself before a high school football game. How often does this happen?

• School shooting threats are part of a cycle. Most are jokes and hoaxes.

• Students arrested with concealed handguns inside schools every day

• Apalachee High school shooting timeline prompts four big questions

• Seven systemic failures before the school shooting at Apalachee High

• Data analysis of 'insider' school shootings like Apalachee High

• Apalachee High follows the same patterns as hundreds of other school shootings

My work was also featured on CBS Nightly News:

Analysis of Trends in September 2024

While there were more victims killed and wounded in September 2024 compared to prior years, there were fewer total incidents.

The details reported by police and school officials to the media about many of these shootings in September was more ambiguous than usual. I was only able to determine the situation for 18 of the 33 shootings. This lack of information was compounded by conflicting messaging.

On September 20, gunfire broke out at the North College Hill High (OH) football game. The crowd evacuated the stadium while police and EMS responded for an injured student. Multiple news outlets reported a football player from the visiting team was wounded by a shot fired from the parking lot while he was standing on the field.

The next day, the North College Hill Police Department and North College Hill City School District released a joint statement saying the shots were not fired in the direction of the stadium and no students were shot. This official statement was a surprise to the football player with a bullet hole in his uniform. He and his father did an interview with local news to tell their story.

Following the same pattern as the last few years (and the focus of the CBS News story), most of the shootings in September were outside of the school building. Most were either in front of the school or in the parking lot.

Dismissal and sporting events (mainly high school football games) continue to be the most common time periods for a shooting.

Descriptions of each incident

• On September 29, 2024, a shooting occurred at Pleasure Ridge Park High School in Louisville, KY. Two teens were shot during a fight in the parking lot during a high school football game.

• On September 27, 2024, a shooting occurred at Wisconsin Lutheran High School in Milwaukee, WI. A security guard accidentally shot himself during a high school football game.

This is an unfunded research project and it takes a ton of time and effort for me to collect and code this information every day. The details of every incident are only available to subscribers.