GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A young man who was turned away from an informal soccer game in Michigan fatally shot a 15-year-old boy and killed a woman who tried to help the victim, all in the presence of other kids, police said.
“There was at least seven or eight kids that are out here, juveniles, older juveniles that witnessed this, which is just horrific for anybody to witness, let alone juveniles,” said Joe Trigg, interim police chief in Grand Rapids.
The shootings occurred Tuesday evening near Southwest Elementary School. Classes were canceled there Wednesday and at another nearby school.
Trigg said kids were playing soccer when an 18-year-old asked to be included.
“For whatever reason, he was turned away,” Trigg said. “Did not like the fact that he was turned away so a verbal altercation started, which led to the suspect pulling out a firearm and shooting that juvenile. The adult female had came to the aid, verbally, of the juvenile victim so then she was targeted.”
The suspect fled but was caught and arrested, police said.
The Grand Rapids school district closed two schools Wednesday so the community can “process what has happened in our neighborhood.”
“It’s just hard,” area resident Donny Irving told WOOD-TV while visiting the site. “Everyone knows a youth and people who go to playgrounds who play, school students, and I think the whole community feels the loss that’s there.”