UPDATE: statement from school:
The Episcopal Community is deeply saddened to share with you that Dale Regan, Episcopal’s Head of School, died this afternoon. Our deepest sympathies are with her family and we ask for your support and prayers during this time. The entire School family mourns the loss of our friend and leader.
All students and faculty are safe and our campus is secure. The School will remain closed from today through the already scheduled spring break until March 19th. The School will provide counseling and pastoral care to its students, faculty, staff and to those in our School community.
The School will continue to provide updates and more information as it becomes available.
Florida Times-Union, updated:
Episcopal Headmaster Dale Regan was slain this afternoon in a murder-suicide, according to a police source and The Rev. Kate Moorehead, the dean of St. John’s Cathedral and the Diocese of Florida.
“We ask you to please pray for us as a community,” Moorehead said. “We have full confidence that Dale Regan is already with God and in heaven with our lord and savior Jesus.”
The identity of the shooter, initially reported to be a fired Spanish teacher, has not been confirmed. Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt said he brought his firearm, apparently a semi-automatic rifle, to the school in a guitar case.
No students were injured.
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(Earlier updates below)
Breaking via Florida Times-Union:
Two people have been fatally shot in an apparent murder-suicide at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville. No students were involved or injured. A Times-Union photographer has heard the shooting involved a maintenance man and an administrator, but that could not be confirmed.
Fire Department Spokesman Tom Francis said the call came about 1:30 p.m. at the school at 4455 Atlantic Boulevard. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is dispatching homicide detectives to the scene and a media staging area has been established.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda said the call came at 1:23 p.m. as a report of someone on campus with a firearm with shots fired. Police found two people dead.
Read it all.
UPDATES:
Via Florida Times-Union blog some extracts:
2:33 PM Jeff Reece: The region’s Bishop and other Episcopal clergy are converging on the school to provide chaplaincy and counseling services if they are needed, said the Rev. Kurt Dunkle, rector at Grace Episcopal Church in Orange Park. “One of the great gifts of being part of a larger church, which we call a diocese, is that when you need your colleagues, they show up,” Dunkle said. … Dunkle said he was in a meeting with the Right Rev. Samuel Johnson Howard when they got word of the shootings today. Howard is the spiritual leader of the Jacksonville-based Episcopal Diocese of Florida. “The first thing he did was way ‘we have to be there,'” Dunkle said.
3:12 Jeff Reece: A high placed police source has just confirmed that the victim was [head of school] Dale Regan. The shooter was a Spanish teacher fired this morning.
3:13 Jeff Reece: According to the source, the shooter hid a semiautomatic assault rifle in a guitar case.
3:14 Jeff Reece: Once again, a Episcopal High School Spanish teacher who was fired this morning snuck a semiautmatic rifle into the school and killed the head of the school, Dale Regan. The shooter then killed her/himself. We are still trying to get the ID of the shooter.
3:15 Nicole Hernandez: Police right now: “employee was terminated this morning”
3:17 Nicole Hernandez: The Very Rev. Kate Moorehead: “Our community is deeply saddened … We ask you to please pray for us …”
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About Dale Regan
2006 – Episcopal High chooses new leader
2011 – EVE award winner, honoring women who make a difference