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CHICAGO - A 16-year-old boy was shot dead by a second student Thursday in a school cafeteria in Knoxville, Tennessee, police said.
The student suspected of killing the boy was arrested without incident on a nearby street six minutes after police received the report of the shooting at 8:11 am (1211 GMT).
"This was not a shooting that was a random act," William Roehl, deputy chief of the Knoxville, Tennessee police told reporters.
"Both the suspect and the victim knew each other," Roehl said at a press conference.
"We don't know the particulars as to why it escalated to the situation that occurred today."
Witnesses told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the argument began with shouting and shoving.
The 15-year-old shooter pulled a gun out of his backpack, shot the other boy and then "casually walked away as if nothing had happened," one student told pastor Kevin Perry.
This is the latest is a series of deadly shootings in US schools.
At least 449 people have been killed at US elementary and high schools since 1992, according to a recent report by the National School Safety Center.
Of those, 333 were shot either on campus, at a school event or on the way to or from school.
The 2007 to 2008 school year (which runs from August to June) was relatively free of violence for younger students: only three were killed compared with 20 the year before.
However, there were several shootings at US colleges, including six people killed at Northern Illinois University in February.
The deadliest school shooting in US history was at Virginia Tech University where 33 people were killed on April 16, 2007.
- AFP /ls
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