UPDATE: 2:50 p.m. Thursday, January 10, 2013

The sheriff of Kern County, Calif., says a 16-year-old student shot at a high school in rural Taft is in critical but stable condition.

Sheriff Donny Youngblood says the shooter is a student who walked into a class at Taft Union High School Thursday morning and shot the teen with a shotgun, and then fired at another student but missed. A teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head.

Youngblood says the teacher tried to get other students out a back door, then he and another staff member engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, and convinced him to put down the gun.

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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Officials say a student has been taken into custody following a shooting at a high school in California's San Joaquin Valley.

One student was shot and wounded about 9 a.m. at Taft Union High School, about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Kern County Sheriff's Department spokesman Ray Pruitt says the injured student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield. There was no immediate word on the victim's condition.

Pruitt said the suspect is a student, and a shotgun was used in the attack.

Kern County Fire Department Eric Coughran told KBAK-TV that another person suffered some type of injuries in the incident but refused medical attention.

KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.