Four students shot outside Atlanta high school

Four students were shot Wednesday afternoon in the parking lot of an Atlanta high school, police said, in the latest outbreak of gun violence on a U.S. school campus.

The students were shot at from an “unknown vehicle” shortly after end-of-day classes were broadcast at Benjamin E. Mays High School, Atlanta Public Schools said in a statement. The injured students, who were not identified, were taken to a hospital and treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, the district said.

A motive was not immediately clear, the district said. The Atlanta Public Schools Police Department, which is investigating the shooting, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Photos and videos from the scene showed yellow police tape zigzagging across a parking lot full of vehicles and police officers.

Parking lots are the most common location for school shootings, according to police Database for school admissions for primary and secondary education, a research project that tracks instances of a gun being fired or brandished on school property. In 2023, there were 346 episodes in which a gun was drawn or fired on a campus, leading to 71 deaths and 249 injuries, according to the database.