A TEENAGER has been charged with shooting dead a girl in front of her little sister and other pupils on a school bus.

Miami-Dade police say the 15-year-old from South Florida was taken into custody at the scene in Homestead yesterday and later charged with manslaughter and carrying a concealed firearm.

An arrest report said the boy took a gun from his backpack and began displaying it on the bus, before firing it once, hitting 13-year-old Lourdes Guzman. She was airlifted to a Miami hospital, where she later died.

Eight other children, including Lourdes's seven-year-old sister, were on the bus but were not harmed.