Two students were shot at Heritage High School in Newport News, Va., Monday morning, and hospitalized with wounds that are not considered life-threatening, according to police.

       Police said one suspect, a male juvenile, was taken into custody about three hours after the shooting.

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       In a news conference, Newport News Police Chief Steve R. Drew said it appears the shooter and victims are known to each other and there was “some type of altercation.”

       A male student was shot in the side of the face, Drew said; a female student was shot in the leg. Both are 17 years old.

       Two other students were hospitalized for injuries they suffered in the chaos of the evacuation, Drew said — one for a sprained or broken arm and the other for an asthma attack. A fifth student may have gone to the hospital independently.

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       Drew said police were called shortly after 11:30 a.m. and arrived to find a “chaotic scene.” Students were evacuated from the school to school tennis courts.

       Joe Baker, an attendance officer, said the shooting occurred as students were leaving lunch and heading back to class. When shots were fired, he said, students began rushing back to the cafeteria and he helped escort them to safety.

       Both staff and students are “traumatized,” Newport News Schools Superintendent George Parker III told reporters. “No one would want to go through these circumstances.”

       He said students in Newport News train “regularly” for active shooter scenarios and sheltered in place before being evacuated. Grief counselors were already on the scene to help them process the event, he said.

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       The Heritage High School shooting was one of at least eight school shootings in Virginia, Maryland or the District since 2018, according to a Post database that tracks gun violence during school hours on K-12 campuses. In those shootings, seven people were injured and one was killed.

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       The Newport News incident follows a surge of campus gun violence that made this spring unlike any other in modern U.S. history. Despite thousands of elementary, middle and high schools remaining partially, or entirely, closed because of the pandemic, there were 14 school shootings nationwide between March and June — the highest total over that period during any year since at least 1999.

       While such shootings remain rare, the latest string has pushed the country past a bleak and uniquely American milestone: More than a quarter-million children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the massacre 22 years ago at Columbine High.

       The campus attacks come at a time of soaring gun violence nationwide. In 2020, bullets killed more than 43,000 Americans, and though that’s the highest total in decades, 2021 could be worse.

       Tom Jackman and Jim Morrison contributed to this report.