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Ohio Youth Pleads Guilty in School Shooting
By: Associated Press
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A 15-year-old boy accused of shooting and wounding two students in an Ohio cafeteria has pleaded guilty in juvenile court to four attempted murder charges and one charge of inducing panic.
Butler County’s prosecutor dropped four felonious assault charges against James Austin Hancock.
Hancock was charged in the Feb. 29 shooting at Madison Local Schools near Middletown, north of Cincinnati. Authorities said Hancock, who was 14 at the time, took a relative’s loaded gun to school and opened fire in a cafeteria, wounding two students. Two other students were injured either by shrapnel or while running away.
The teenager replied guilty to each charge Thursday. He is to be sentenced in about a month.
The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify juveniles charged with crimes, but Hancock’s name was widely reported.