In a shooting outside Garfield High School, a teen was killed

While authorities were still looking for the shooter, a 17-year-old student who had been wounded outside Garfield High School on Thursday passed away at Harborview Medical Center.

A male high school student is thought to be the culprit, said to Deputy Chief Eric Barden during a press briefing.

The pupil was hurt when gunfire broke out in the school’s parking lot during lunch. He passed away at the hospital on Thursday.

“The trauma that our children are experiencing is beyond words,” Mayor Bruce Harrell, a Garfield High School alumnus, remarked at a press conference on Thursday. “These kids deserve better, and this is not the first shooting at Garfield.”

The incident on Thursday occurs as Garfield High School approaches its conclusion after a school year marred by gun violence and community residents pleading for local authorities to step in.

In March, a student was shot outside the school while she was waiting for her bus. In addition, there was an October shooting outside the school and several neighboring shootings in June of last year that resulted in heightened campus security even though no children were harmed.

On Friday and Monday, Garfield schools are closed. On Friday, drop-in counseling sessions will be offered by wellness and support personnel at Nova High School.

Harrell reaffirmed his support for investing in crime-fighting technologies on Thursday and stressed the importance of collaboration with neighborhood organizations. He declared that the Seattle Police Department is under his direction to improve patrols.

In order to give families and students in the Central District a sense of security, the police department would “redouble” its efforts, according to interim chief Sue Rahr.

At the press conference held at the Mount Calvary Christian Center in the Central District, Rahr declared, “We’re not coming in here to be hard-core policing.” “We’re coming into the neighborhood to work and gather with the local community.”

On Thursday, the website of Seattle Public Schools provided a link to a page commemorating Friday’s Gun Violence Awareness Day.

“This message is the hardest yet to deliver, but every time I have to report an incident of gun violence on or near our campus, it is tough,” Garfield Principal Tarance Hart wrote in an email to families on Thursday evening. “The violence in our community breaks my heart, and the terrible effects it still has on our school deeply disturb me.”

“This is too much for kids to handle,” stated Jeff Scott, whose daughter is a freshman at Garfield. “To be honest, I have no idea what to do about it.”

It was “surreal,” he added, to respond to the school following another incident so soon after the last one.

He expressed his relief upon his daughter’s arrival home from school.

Melanie Skinner, a Garfield student, remarked, “I’m really raw,” as she waited for her daughter to emerge. “It’s gotten so accepted.”

Skinner said that she assisted in planning a demonstration demanding greater action to stop gun violence close to the school following the shooting in March. According to Skinner, she is against her daughter going back to school. She stated that she will be present at graduation, but Thursday was her last day at Garfield.

There are other parents who have chosen to follow Skinner’s lead. According to KUOW, a mother who attended Garfield High School and was a former police officer chose to take her son out of school after seeing the victim and administering CPR on her.

On Thursday night, a few parents, neighbors, and city representatives gathered outside the school.

Many people expressed their dissatisfaction with the district and city for their lack of action.

Reintroducing school resource officers—police officers stationed in schools—was one of the topics covered by SPD public safety liaison Victoria Beach. She also mentioned that she had heard from kids that they desired a police presence at Garfield.

“We do not want school officers,” parents and children declared to the School Board following George Floyd’s death, according to Lt. Brandon James, who is in charge of community engagement. “Dynamics and environments alter… It’s time to give that some thought.

Bishop Reggie C. Witherspoon Sr. of Mount Calvary expressed his “crushed heart,” saying he knew the victim’s family. According to Witherspoon, the community must change the rising tide of gun violence, not simply the police. At the news conference on Thursday were representatives from Urban Family, an organization that works to prevent teenage violence.

“We are dealing with a pandemic,” Witherspoon declared. “An entire generation of young people is about to disappear.”

Late on Thursday, Governor Jay Inslee thanked the police officers who responded to the incident and offered his sympathies to the family on X. “I am appreciative of the lawmakers and groups attempting to lessen gun violence and assist young people. Thoughts and prayers are not enough to comfort us,” the author stated.

According to Barden, when police arrived at the school at 12:30 p.m. in response to shooting allegations, they saw the youngster lying on the ground. Before paramedics from the Seattle Fire Department could take him to Harborview, where he underwent surgery, officers had placed chest seals on him and administered first aid, according to Barden. Later, police confirmed that he had passed away from his wounds.

According to Barden, investigators discovered that the 17-year-old attempted to break up “an altercation” between two males prior to the shooting. After a while, he claimed, one of the boys became “apparently angry” and spoke with the victim briefly before shooting him and taking off.

The suspect, who escaped on foot while wearing a red hoodie, light blue jeans, and white sneakers, has not been identified or located by the police.

According to Barden, police “flooded” the regions where witnesses observed the suspect flee, but they haven’t been able to track him down.

Detectives are questioning witnesses and going over surveillance camera footage. Barden urged anyone with details regarding the incident or the name of the suspect to give 206-233-5000 a call.

Barden declared, “This is an extraordinary tragedy for the community.” “Protecting youth is the community’s top priority.”

While having lunch nearby, Garfield sophomores Serafina Alberoto, 16, and Meriyem Roba, 16, reported seeing seven Seattle police cruisers speed toward the school.

Roba’s brother, a freshman, called her at 12:32 p.m. pleading with her not to walk back to the school.

“Don’t come, don’t come—the entire school is under lockdown,” he yelled, according to Roba. “He was in a panic.”

Because gunshots around their school have grown so common, Roba and Alberoto said they feel numb. They pointed out the places of recent shootings from a perch on a patio outside the school.

“Imagine if that was one of us; we feel unsafe.” Roba stated.

“Anytime, it could be any one of us,” Alberoto declared.

According to the sophomores, some Garfield kids have been dragged into gangs and are experiencing emotional difficulties. They added that they frequently see other students posing with guns on their social media posts.

The pupils claimed that there are few appointments with the school therapist and that their counselors are overburdened.

“If they believe they will die at 25, then why not give them hope for the future?” With a gesture toward the crime scene tape, Roba said.

For many years, there has been a risk of gun violence on or around the Garfield campus for both staff and students.

There have been about five instances of gun violence on Seattle school campuses since the 1990s. There were two of those at Garfield. During a disagreement in the lunchroom in 1994, a student pulled out a gun and opened fire, wounding two other students. 2008 saw a teenage gang member shoot and kill a rival gang member who was a Garfield student behind the school.

Parent of a 16-year-old sophomore at Garfield High School, Michelle Martine, a first-grade teacher at Stevens Elementary School, claimed that she hurried to the school as soon as she heard about the shooting.

Martine shouted at the officers stationed around the school to close it on Friday while she was positioned behind the yellow crime scene tape.

She cried, “Don’t send our kids back here; it’s cruel.” “We’re done with school for the year.”

Martine claimed that the 17-year-old girl who was shot in front of Garfield High School in March was a student of hers. She claimed that her son, who is acquainted with the girl, was standing next to her when the incident occurred and that the bullets just missed him.

Martine said her son has been terrified to walk to Garfield ever since, even though he doesn’t want to miss out on school or time with his friends.

According to Martine, the day following the shooting around two months prior, Garfield High School remained open. In order to protect its pupils, she expressed early on Thursday afternoon that she hoped the district would close the schools on Friday or for the entire year.

“My role as a parent and a teacher is to keep children safe,” she declared. “I just don’t want to see a child die on the schoolyard at the end of the year.”

News Source- seattletimes