June 3, 2011
SAN JOSE (AFP) - 17-year-old US high school student learning Spanish in Costa Rica was shot dead Thursday by a hotel guard who mistook him for a thief, police said.
Officials said a group of American students had arrived back late to their hotel, close to the town of La Fortuna, when the guard opened fire on them.
Police said the guard, 34, was arrested.
The hotel owner, Milton Penaranda, told a Costa Rican television station that the guard, thinking the students were a group of thieves, fired a shot into the air.
The students panicked and ran to the hotel, he said.
Penaranda said the guard "responded with another shot thinking that the boys were going to attack, and unfortunately the bullet hit one of them."
The student, whose identity was not released, was shot in the chest and died instantly, police said.
The victim was a student at McLouth High School in Kansas, and was part of a group of 12 students studying Spanish in Costa Rica, La Nacion newspaper said on its website.
La Fortuna is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of San Jose, and abuts the 1,633 meter-high (5,300 feet-high) Arenal volcano, one of Costa Rica's main tourist attractions.
