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An 11-year-old in Mexico told some of his classmates ‘today is the day.’ Then he opened fire

A teacher was killed and six other people injured when an 11-year-old student opened fire Friday at a private school in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, ...
MEXICO-SCHOOL-SHOOTING

(CNN) — A teacher was killed and six other people injured when an 11-year-old student opened fire Friday at a private school in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, officials said.

The shooter, a sixth-grader armed with two guns, also died, said Adelaido Flores, the regional coordinator for public safety in Coahuila, near the Texas border.

Coahuila Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme told reporters that classmates said the boy was generally well behaved but voiced a strange warning before his rampage on Friday.

“He told some classmates, ‘Today is the day,’ ” Riquelme said.

Shortly after 8 a.m., the student asked to use the restroom. After about 15 minutes, the teacher went to look for him and found him leaving the restroom with weapons in hand, the governor said.

Riquelme said authorities believe the boy was influenced by the video game Natural Selection, a first-person shooting game. He said the boy was wearing a undershirt emblazoned with the game’s name.

“He had mentioned the video game, which I believe he tried to recreate today,” the governor said.

The website for Natural Selection 2 bills it as “an immersive, multiplayer shooter that pits aliens against humans in a strategic and action-packed struggle for survival.”

Unknown Worlds Entertainment, which manufacture the game, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Anxious relatives arrived at the school to pick up students after the incident, news footage from affiliate TV Azteca showed.

The shooting occurred at the Cervantes de Torreón School in the industrial city of Torreón, the city’s mayor, Jorge Zermeño Infante, told reporters.

Preliminary reports were that the student entered the school and fired at a teacher before apparently shooting himself, the mayor said.

Four of the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital, he said. Their condition was unknown.

The school, in a Facebook post, said a teacher and a student died in the shooting. Additionally, five students and a teacher were wounded, the post said.

“We never would have imagined that a situation like this could occur in our society,” the post said, adding that school officials were cooperating with the authorities.

The private school serves students from kindergarten through high school, according to its website. Enrollment was more than 1,900 students in 2016, the site states.

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