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(ST. LOUIS) — A 16-year-old girl and a 61-year-old woman were killed by a gunman in a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday morning, according to authorities.

The gunman “was quickly stopped by police,” there was an exchange of gunfire and the suspect has also died, according to the St. Louis Public School District and St. Louis police.

Seven other victims, ranging from 15 to 16 years old, were hospitalized with injuries including gunshot wounds, police said. All were currently listed in stable condition, according to police.

During a press conference Monday evening, police identified the suspect as 19-year-old Orlando Harris, a former student who graduated from the high school last year.

Police said Harris has no prior criminal history, and they’re working to establish a motive, saying Monday night there are “suspicions that there may be some mental illness that he was experiencing.”

The shooting was reported at about 9:10 a.m. local time, police said. As students fled the building, they reported that a gunman was armed with a long gun, police said.

Authorities did not say how the gunman entered the building but police stressed that the school’s doors were locked.

Seven security guards were in the school, according to St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams. Officials said security staff identified the suspect’s efforts to enter the school and immediately notified other staff.

Police said “the scene is secure and there is no active threat.”

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said at a press conference she had visited students at the school when the year started.

“They were bright eyed, bushy tailed. We laughed, we sang, we danced. And now to be here for such a devastating and traumatic situation breaks my heart,” she said. “I’m heartbroken for these families who send their children to our schools hoping that they will be safe. Our children shouldn’t have to experience this.”

The mayor added, “I’m sure that everyone involved is going to have to deal with the trauma that will reverberate across our community.”

When asked about the shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s press briefing, “We need additional action to stop the scourge of gun violence.”

“Every day that the Senate fails to send assault weapons ban to the president’s desk, or waits to take … other commonsense actions, is a day too late for our families and communities impacted by gun violence,” she said.

ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Darren Reynolds, Matt Foster and Teddy Grant contributed to this report.

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(MANCHESTER, N.H.) — The father of Harmony Montgomery, a little girl who disappeared in 2019, was arrested on Monday for her murder, New Hampshire officials said.

Adam Montgomery, 32, is charged with second-degree murder, tampering with a witness, falsifying evidence and abuse of a corpse, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella announced at a news conference Monday.

Prosecutors allege Adam Montgomery repeatedly hit his daughter in the head on or about Dec. 7, 2019. The tampering with a witness charge is for allegedly pressuring his wife to give false information, prosecutors said.

This August, authorities announced they had determined Harmony had been murdered in Manchester in early December 2019.

Harmony’s remains have not been found. She would be 8 years old if alive today.

Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg became choked up when talking about Harmony at Monday’s news conference.

In honor of Harmony — an “innocent and defenseless child” — the chief said he wanted to encourage people “to do something nice for a child today.”

“Give him or her a hug, some special words of encouragement,” he said.

Formella called the arrest a “major step,” but said more work must be done.

Harmony’s case dates back to 2019, when a Massachusetts court ordered Harmony be sent to live with her father and stepmother in New Hampshire, according to a state report released in February.

Harmony’s mother, Crystal Sorey, said the last time she saw Harmony was via FaceTime in spring 2019, officials said.

In July 2019, an anonymous call was made to New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth and Families alleging that in a visit a week earlier, he or she saw Harmony “had a black eye that Adam Montgomery admitted to causing,” the report said. The same day as the anonymous call, a case worker visited and didn’t see a black eye on Harmony, the report said.

One week later, that same case worker noted a red mark and faded bruising under Harmony’s eyelid, and both Harmony and her dad told the worker the mark was from being hit by a toy while playing, the report said.

In following visits to the home, “the children appeared happy and healthy,” the report said. In the last visit, in October 2019, case workers found the abuse allegations unfounded but added, “the situation was scored high risk for future child welfare involvement pursuant to the Risk Assessment tool citing the history of substance use, prior family history with child protection, and economic challenges,” according to the report.

In January 2020, Adam Montgomery told the child protective services worker that Harmony had been living in Massachusetts with her mother since Thanksgiving 2019, the report said. The worker left a voicemail with Sorey to confirm Harmony lived there, but never heard back, the report said.

In September 2021, someone close to Harmony’s mother contacted the Division for Children, Youth and Families with concerns, and the agency determined Harmony had never been registered for school in Manchester, the report said.

The Division for Children, Youth and Families then searched for Adam and Kayla Montgomery.

When police found Adam Montgomery in December 2021, he gave the authorities “contradictory and unconvincing explanations of Harmony’s whereabouts,” the report said. Adam Montgomery allegedly told police Harmony’s mother had picked her up, even though Kayla Montgomery told police that Adam Montgomery told her he drove Harmony back to her mother on the day after Thanksgiving 2019, according to the report.

Adam Montgomery is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday, Formella said.

Authorities urge anyone with information on Harmony’s death or the location of her remains to call or text the case’s tip line at 603-203-6060.

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(YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif.) — A possible brutal murder in one of the most scenic places in America goes unsolved, a serial killer confesses to more than 100 murders and two generations of detectives try to crack the case.

The second season of “Wild Crime” on Hulu launches on Oct. 24. The case at the heart of this season begins in June 1983 when a man out walking with his friends’ son in Yosemite National Park finds a hand in a meadow.

“It was pretty obvious it was a human hand,” said Tom Day, who stumbled upon the crime scene. “I knew I had to get a hold of law enforcement and get somebody up there to look at it.”

“We had no idea of the who, what, when, where, why, or how this hand had come to Summit Meadow,” said Kim Tucker, former criminal investigator at the National Park Service.

The officers faced obstacles from the outset: the crime scene was in the complete wilderness, there was no widespread DNA testing at the time and there were no clues in the surrounding area.

“We didn’t have any known missing people from the immediate area,” said Tucker, “so it was very difficult to think, well, what is the next thing we should do?”

Investigators would eventually turn to a forensic anthropologist, who suggested the deceased was a young woman.

In the spring of 1984, when the case had gone cold, investigators were contacted by the California Department of Justice, who gave them a tip that an alleged serial killer was confessing to murders across the country, including one that could fit the profile of the Yosemite case.

Investigators thought this might be a breakthrough in the case, and went to meet this alleged serial killer, whose name and frightening backstory is revealed in “Wild Crime.”

The alleged serial killer was confessing to things like necrophilia and cutting up victims into “little tiny pieces” and during four months in police custody he admitted to committing 156 murders, mostly female victims.

One place that he said he had committed a homicide was “a mountainous national park in California,” said Tucker, which gave investigators a potential lead for the first time in the case.

Additionally, the alleged serial killer said in an interview with the police that he had “specifically across the United States left evidence to show I was doing the crimes.”

Investigators went to meet the alleged killer in the Sacramento county jail in August 1984.

He gave them his testimony, confessing to killing a young woman in the national park by strangulation.

A few months later, in Texas, the alleged killer provided even more details, saying that he and the alleged victim had had lunch together, eating “some fried chicken wrapped in tinfoil” and beer, before he killed her. He also said that he remembered trail markings near where the murder occurred.

These markings, the investigators realized, could have been the cross-country ski trail signs nailed to the trees in Summit meadow.

“It’s like, ‘This guy has been to the crime scene,'” said former criminal investigator for the National Park Service Don Coelho. “That’s when it hit us.”

Back in Yosemite, the investigators made crucial breakthroughs with leads from the alleged killer’s confession. They found beer cans, wrapped-up tin foil, a canteen and what seemed like a piece of fabric that could have been from the victim’s jacket.

“I don’t know that what we found was proof,” said Tucker, “but I felt like we had found the scene that he described.”

The story continues to get stranger and more unbelievable.

Aspects of the case begin to fall apart when the alleged killer recants his confession. A human skull, found across the street from the meadow, brings investigators closer to identifying the victim.

The case would eventually be taken over by National Park Service agent Cullen Tucker, Kim Tucker’s son, nearly 40 years later.

“This unidentified skeleton has a name,” said Cullen Tucker. “We need to find it. We need to help bring justice to these people, to the families.”

The rest of the investigation would lead them to name the suspected victim and uncover their relationship to an alleged bizarre California cult.

Watch Season 2 of “Wild Crime” on Hulu to learn how the story ends.

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(ST. LOUIS) — Five victims were injured in a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday morning, according to a source briefed on the investigation.

The suspect “was quickly stopped by police” inside the school following the shooting and taken into custody, according to the St. Louis Public School District and St. Louis police.

The suspect was also injured, the source told ABC News.

Students are being evacuated from the building, the district said.

The conditions of those injured were not immediately clear, and the source said not all injured were necessarily shot.

Story developing…

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(ST. LOUIS) — Two students were injured in a shooting at a St. Louis, Missouri, high school Monday morning, according to the school district.

The suspect “was quickly stopped by police” inside the Central Visual and Performing Arts school following the shooting, according to the St. Louis Public School District.

Students are being evacuated from the building, the district said.

The injured students’ conditions were not immediately clear.

Story developing…

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(MINNEAPOLIS) — One of two former police officers scheduled to go on trial Monday on charges stemming from the death of George Floyd pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with prosecutors, a court official told ABC News.

J. Alexander Kueng, 29, pleaded guilty Monday morning to one count of aiding and abetting in manslaughter after prosecutors and Kueng’s defense attorney agreed to recommend a sentence of 42 months in prison, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Courts said.

The plea was announced just as a joint state trial for Kueng and Tou Thao, 34, was to begin with jury selection. The trial comes after the two former Minneapolis police officers reported to separate prisons this month to begin their federal sentences.

Both men had pleaded not guilty to charges of aiding and abetting in second-degree unintentional murder and aiding and abetting in manslaughter stemming from the Memorial Day 2020 death of Floyd, which ignited massive protests across the nation and world.

The trial in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis begins Monday with jury selection, which is scheduled to take three weeks, a spokesperson for the court told ABC News.

Opening statements in the trial are scheduled to get underway on Nov. 7.

The state trial was initially scheduled for June 2022, but Judge Peter Cahill delayed it over concerns it would be difficult to seat an impartial jury given the pretrial publicity. Earlier his year, Thao, Kueng and a third defendant, former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane, were convicted on federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death and Lane later pleaded guilty to state charges.

At the time of his decision, Cahill said postponing the trial should “diminish the impact of this publicity on the defendants’ right and ability to receive a fair trial from an impartial and unbiased jury.”

Lane, 39, pleaded guilty in May to state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, state prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder. Lane was sentenced in September to three years in prison, which he is serving concurrently with his federal sentence of 2 1/2 years.

Kueng, Thao and Lane were convicted in February by a federal jury on charges of violating George Floyd’s civil rights by failing to intervene or provide medical aid as their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on the back of Floyd’s neck, while he was handcuffed, for more than nine minutes.

Kueng, a rookie cop at the time of Floyd’s death, was sentenced to three years in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Thao, who had been a nine-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department at the time of Floyd’s death, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, also followed by two years of supervised release.

Floyd suffered critical injuries when he was placed in handcuffs and in a prone position on the pavement after being accused of attempting to use a fake $20 bill at a convenience store to buy cigarettes. Videos from security, police body cameras and civilian cell phone cameras showed Floyd begging for his life and complaining he could not breathe as Chauvin held his knee on the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious and without a pulse, according to prosecutors. Floyd was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Chauvin was convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.

While Chauvin’s state trial was livestreamed gavel-to-gavel due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic limiting the public’s access to the courtroom, cameras are not being allowed at the trial for Kueng and Thao. Cahill ruled in April that conditions “are materially different from those the Court confronted from November 2020 through April 2021 with the Chauvin trial.”

The 46-year-old Chauvin also pleaded guilty in December to federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced in July to 21 years in federal prison.

During their federal trial, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”

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(NEW YORK) — Math scores among fourth and eighth grade students across the country experienced their largest decline in decades, according to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”

Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which conducted the study, said in a statement that the results reflect the “profound toll” the pandemic took on student learning.

“The results also underscore the importance of instruction and the role of schools in both students’ academic growth and their overall well-being,” Carr said. “It’s clear we all need to come together—policymakers and community leaders at every level—as partners in helping our educators, children, and families succeed.”

NCES compared students’ NAEP scores during the COVID-19 pandemic to pre-pandemic performance on the 2019 NAEP assessments. NCES has administered the assessments in math and reading since the early 1990s. About 450,000 students from more than 10,000 schools participated in the 2022 exams.

Compared to 2019, the average fourth grade math assessment scores decreased by 5 points and the average eighth grade assessment scores decreased by 8 points, according to the results.

On average, fourth and eighth grade students’ reading scores also declined but not as sharply as the math assessment scores. Compared to 2019, the average fourth and eighth grade reading scores decreased by three points each.

Fourth grade students of color, specifically, experienced more dramatic declines. For example, the average math score for Black and Hispanic fourth grade students dropped the most compared to other racial and ethnic groups. The average reading score for American Indian/Alaska native fourth grade students plummeted by the largest margin.

The northeast region saw the largest decline in average scores for both math and reading during the pandemic.

For many parents and educators, the recent NAEP results confirm fears of the pandemic’s long-term consequences for students’ academic progress.

Remote learning also laid bare existing racial and class disparities in education caused by lack of access to reliable technology and child care support for full-time working parents. Students of color were also more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time and were also more likely to have lost a parent or caregiver compared to their white peers during the pandemic.

Last month, NCES reported that math and reading test scores among the nation’s 9-year-olds also plummeted during the first two years of the pandemic, with reading scores falling by the largest margin in more than 30 years.

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