AFP

CHARDON A SECOND victim has died after a student opened fire on classmates at his Ohio high school, the local police chief said on Tuesday.

Tim McKenna, police chief in the town of Chardon, said at a news conference that teenaged victim Russell King died on Tuesday, a day after being wounded in a school shooting that killed another student and wounded three.

“It’s sad to say — at this point I’m going to announce the second student Russell King has passed,” McKenna told reporters.

“At 4:49 this morning, the medical examiner’s office contacted me to advise me of that. And I feel sorry not only for that family, but all the families that are affected by this,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, officials at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s officer told AFP that King had been declared “brain dead.” The 17-year old gunman, identified as TJ Lane, opened fire with a handgun on a group of fellow students Monday at Chardon High shortly after the start of the school day.

The other victim, 16-yearold Daniel Parmertor, died in hospital shortly after the shooting.

The shooting has shocked residents and students of the small Ohio town, who have described Lane as an “outcast” who had been bullied and said he had posted warnings on Twitter and left disturbing messages on Facebook.

Shocked residents of this close-knit community outside Cleveland struggled to comprehend how it could have happened, and, as in previous school shootings, the gunman’s demons, the missed warning signs and lax US gun laws leapt quickly to the fore.

Nate Mueller, a junior, described the mayhem, as he watched one of his friends bend over a table bleeding and another fall to the ground in a pool of blood before a shot grazed his own ear.

“It was terror,” Mueller told ABC News. “There’s blood, there’s people screaming, everybody’s just running in different directions and you’re just trying to get out.” A teacher eventually chased the shooter from the school, as the town of 5,000 residents was placed on lockdown and the victims were rushed to hospital, some by helicopter.

The suspect was apprehended by police a short while later after turning himself in to bystanders.