California Teacher Accidentally Shoots Gun In Classroom, Injuring Student

A teacher accidentally fired a gun inside a high school in Seaside, California on Tuesday. One student suffered minor injuries as a result, KION-TV in Monterey reported.

Dennis Alexander was supposed to be teaching a lesson on public safety for his Administration of Justice class at Seaside High School. Clearly, he wasn’t teaching it right. The gun went off as Alexander accidentally discharged it into the ceiling.

"Fragments from the bullet struck a student in the neck," Seaside Police Chief Abdul Pridgen, according to CBS News. The room was full of 16 and 17-year-olds, according to The Californian. Bullet fragments got lodged into the neck of the injured student, the student's father Fermin Gonzales told KSBW.

Shockingly, Gonzales claimed that nobody called the police to report the shooting. He said he and the victim’s mother had to call to file a report themselves after their 17-year-old son came home with blood on his shirt.

"He's shaken up, but he's going to be OK," Gonzales told KSBW. "I'm just pretty upset that no one told us anything and we had to call the police ourselves to report it."

The parents rushed him to a nearby emergency room for X-rays.

"Best practice is you don't take live firearms into a classroom," Chief Pridgen told CBS. "You take what is called a dummy gun, which looks like a real gun but you can't even put a magazine in it and you certainly can't put bullets in it. I'm not sure what circumstances led to a firearm being used in this class."

In addition to teaching, Alexander works as a reserve police officer. He is also a Seaside city councilman. He has been put on administrative leave after the incident.

"Upon learning of the incident, school site administration, the District Office, and the Seaside Police Department immediately began investigating, including interviewing students in the class. It was determined that there was no immediate threat to students or staff, and school remained in session," The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District said in a statement.

It does not appear that Alexander has faced any legal action yet for the shooting.

Earlier this month, a teacher from Dalton, Georgia was arrested after he fired at least one shot in his classroom. Jesse Randall Davidson, 53, was arrested. The Social studies teacher also served as play-by-play voice of the school’s football team, according to updates the Dalton Police Department was giving the community on its Facebook Page. He allegedly barricaded himself in a classroom and no children were injured.

The incidents come not long after President Donald Trump announced his new goal of arming school teachers to combat school shootings.

[Photo: Seaside City Council website]