2 shot at Wis. prom; 18-year-old gunman dead

Jonathan Anderson and Nathan Vine, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin1 hour ago

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ANTIGO, Wis. -  A 18-year-old who shot and injured two students outside Antigo High School after prom has reportedly died from wounds suffered when a police officer shot the suspect, authorities said Sunday. The Associated Press reported that the gunman is 18-year-old Jakob E. Wagner.

The gunman was armed with a rifle when he started shooting people as they left the school around 11 p.m. Saturday, according to Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller. Officers who were patrolling the school during prom responded. One of them shot Wagner with the rifle, according to police.

Nathan Vine/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

An Antigo Police Department squad is parked behind road barriers Sunday outside more

Wagner and both victims — a male and a female whose identities haven't been released — were taken to Aspirus Langlade Hospital in Antigo, police said. The female victim was treated and released and the male victim was undergoing surgery for injuries that weren’t life-threatening, police told AP.

Langlade County Coroner Larry Shadick told AP that Wagner died shortly after 1 a.m. in the intensive care unit of a Wausau hospital.

“The community is safe at this point,” Roller said during a press conference several hours after the incident.

The relationship between the shooter and the victims was not immediately clear as of early Sunday morning, according to Roller.

Reinhardt Balcerzak, a retired Antigo High School science teacher and member of the City Council, said he heard about the shooting when he turned on his TV Sunday morning.

"It hasn't even sunk in yet," Balcerzak told a journalist from the Wausau Daily Herald, part of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. "I put on Good Morning America and that's the first thing I saw. I told my wife, 'I think that's Antigo.'"

He described Antigo students as "really nice kids" and said that when he taught there, the worst he ever worried about were occasional fistfights.

"It just takes one or two that are angry about something," Balcerzak said in reference to the shooting. "It's too bad that's going to be the memory for those kids. I feel bad that's their last prom. I feel bad for the ones who were shot and their parents."

Carol Feller Gottard, newly elected to the City Council, said she too was stunned when she awoke to the news Sunday morning. Her children are adults now and attended the old high school.

"It's just unbelievable," she told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. But she added quickly, "I'm sure the community will come together to support the families."

Already by 7 a.m., an Antigo Police Department Facebook post about the news had drawn dozens of comments, most praising the officers who responded.

"God bless all of you at the APD," one commenter wrote. "The quick response of the officers at the scene no doubt saved others from injury."

Antigo is a city of 8,000 35 miles northeast of Wausau.

Contributing: The Associated Press.​ Follow Jonathan Anderson on Twitter: @jonathanderson.