One injured in shooting at Cummings K-8 Optional School in Memphis
One student shot and injured another student at Cummings K-8 Optional School in South Memphis on Thursday and fled before turning himself in at a police precinct, the Memphis Police Department said.
The morning shooting prompted an evacuation of the school and the injured student was taken to Methodist Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. The injured boy is 13 years old, school district spokesperson Jerica Phillips said. Shelby County Schools superintendent Joris Ray said late Thursday afternoon that the child was expected to make a full recovery.
Another 13-year-old boy, a student at the same school, is accused of the shooting and will likely face a Juvenile Court charge of attempted first-degree murder, MPD Deputy Chief Don Crowe said Thursday evening. Video surveillance suggests the shooting occurred in a stairwell inside the school with no other students around, he said. Crowe said detectives were still investigating what happened. It wasn’t immediately clear how the boy got the gun.
The school will be open again Friday with additional staff and counselors to support students and parents, school officials said.
Shootings on school grounds are still rare, but the shooting takes place amid a wider wave of gun violence in the Memphis area that has killed hundreds of adults and many children since the pandemic began.
Dr. Barry Gilmore, chief medical officer at Le Bonheur, said Thursday afternoon that the regional pediatric trauma center is facing a large number of gunshot cases. “So far this year we’ve treated over 100 children with gunshot wounds in this community. With that, we’re on pace to exceed the record last year, which was 135.”
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Ray, the superintendent, pleaded with the community.
“This has to stop. This must stop. The gun violence must end,” Ray told reporters around noon as rain fell outside the church to which the schoolchildren had been evacuated. He urged the public to support children and provide tips about guns and violence.
At some points on Thursday morning, TV live feeds showed emotional parents arguing with police as they tried to reunite with their children at the evacuation site.
Ray said he understood their angst and said the school officials were working carefully to get the right child with the right parent. “We’re gonna do everything in our power — everything in our power — to keep this from ever happening again,” Ray said.
He said he and other officials had already visited the children’s hospital to check on the injured student and he planned to go back. “We need to look at our laws.” He said there’s no way a child should have a gun.
“This could have been avoided. If you see something, say something.”
Ray said the K-8 school has metal detectors and they were used Thursday morning. In a subsequent Twitter post at about 1:30 p.m., he wrote, “Parent to parent, I just embraced the young man’s father and we prayed for better days.”
Crowe, the deputy police chief, had told reporters near the scene that video surveillance led officers to conclude one student shot another…
Read More: One injured in shooting at Cummings K-8 Optional School in Memphis