NEW MEXICO – New Mexico authorities were working on Wednesday, January 15 to bring charges soon against a 12-year-old boy accused of opening fire at his school and wounding two students before a staff member persuaded him to lay down his shotgun, officials said.

The boy, who has not been identified publicly, will be formally charged this week as a juvenile.

The shooting at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell Tuesday, January 14, in which a boy, 11, and a girl, 13, were wounded, took place in the school gym, where students tend to wait during inclement weather before lessons begin.

The suspected shooter will not be charged as an adult due to his age, in accordance with New Mexico law.

The violence in the school gym lasted just 10 seconds before a teacher stepped forward and persuaded the boy, who had opened fire and wounded the two students, to put down his shotgun, officials said. His motive remained unclear.

The boy was being held at an “appropriate children’s facility” in Albuquerque, 170 miles to the northwest, said state police spokesman Lieutenant Emmanuel Gutierrez.

Police and the district attorney said they were discussing the evidence before deciding what charges to bring against the boy. 

A spokesman for University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, to which both wounded children were airlifted on Tuesday and where they underwent surgery, said the boy was in critical condition, while the girl’s condition was satisfactory. 

The shooting was the second at a U.S. middle school in the past three months, after another 12-year-old boy opened fire at his middle school in Sparks, Nevada, in October, killing a teacher and wounding two students before killing himself.