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Marysville Students Describe 'Terrifying' Wait After Shooting In High School Cafeteria

One student was killed and four others are being treated at area hospitals after a school shooting north of Seattle.

Police in Marysville, Washington, confirmed the gunman was a student. He died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Marysville-Pilchuck High School student Emmanuel Chavez de la Cruz said the shooting happened in the school cafeteria near his world history classroom. The sophomore said an alarm went off and his teacher locked the door and darkened the classroom while the students hid.

“One of my friends who was close to the door -- it had a little window -- said that there was a lot of people running, like a herd of people running,” Chavez de la Cruz said. “You know the movie World War Z where people were just running, it was kind of like that.”

Senior Kain Davis said he sheltered in a different classroom for an hour-and-a-half before getting the all-clear from a police officer.

“Some people were crying. Some others were making sure siblings were okay,” Davis said. “Family members were all calling. Everyone was rushing on the phones and everything. It was super scary, just everything happening at once. It was terrifying.”

Students and parents were reunited at a church near Marysville-Pilchuck High School. The high school has an enrollment of about 2,500.

Now semi-retired, Tom Banse covered national news, business, science, public policy, Olympic sports and human interest stories from across the Northwest. He reported from well known and out–of–the–way places in the region where important, amusing, touching, or outrageous events unfolded. Tom's stories can be found online and were heard on-air during "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" on NPR stations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.