Drive-by shooting at Louisville bus stop leaves student dead, 2 others injured
Louisville KY Sept 24 2021 A 16-year-old Eastern High School student is dead, two other teens are injured and a community is reeling after a drive-by shooting at a school bus stop in Louisville early Wednesday morning.
As night approached, community members were expected to gather near the site of the shooting, which was reported about 6:30 a.m. at Dr. W.J. Hodge and West Chestnut streets in the Russell neighborhood. Jefferson County Public Schools officials were making plans to ensure affected students have access to crisis counseling.
In total, Louisville Metro Police said three students were struck during the shooting.
One of the boys, 16-year-old Tyree Smith, was later pronounced dead at University of Louisville Hospital. The second boy, 13, was sent to the hospital with non-life-threatening-injuries. A 14-year-old girl was grazed on the ankle and declined medical treatment.
Sharonda Smith, who said she was the aunt of the slain boy, said he was a junior at Eastern. She said she believes the location was the target, not her nephew.
“That bus stop was a target for whatever reason,” she said. “But all I know is my nephew, he went to school, he went to work, he was in 11th grade. He’s never had a problem. He don’t get calls home from the teachers regarding his behavior or anything.”
The Rev. Charles Elliott, pastor of King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church, which is a few blocks from Wednesday’s shooting scene, said the boy’s death made him think of how, decades ago, he was “protesting for the right for Black kids to have the same opportunity that white kids have” and attend the same schools.
But just as Elliott noted Louisville suffered “many shootings” about 50 years ago, the longtime pastor and civil rights leader said he wonders how much has really changed in the city.
“It’s heartbreaking for me now to see that my marching and my protesting for that is in vain,” Elliott said while inside his church office Wednesday.
“…We can’t police our way out of this,” added Elliott, who is nearing his 60th year in ministry. “It’s not actually a school problem (either). The problem is sin and because we have no respect for one another no more.”
At Eastern High School, counselors from a JCPS “special response team” were on hand to work with students and staff, district spokesman Mark Hebert said.
“Our primary goal is to give (students) a safe space to talk, give them positive coping skills,” JCPS counseling specialist Michelle Sircy said. “And we’re triaging students and identifying students that may need more additional, intensive counseling intervention after the crisis team has left.”
No suspects had been identified as of Wednesday afternoon, according to LMPD officials.
Police were looking for a 2019 Jeep Cherokee with an Illinois license plate, number BD91644, in connection with the case. Anyone with information on the vehicle is asked to call LMPD at 502-574-5673.
With Wednesday morning’s shooting, 21 children and teens have been killed in Louisville this year, according to preliminary LMPD data. All but one of this year’s child victims died by gunfire.
That’s more than the number killed in all of 2020, when 16 children and teens younger than 18 were among the city’s record-high 173 homicide victims.
Louisville is not alone in grappling with escalating gun violence. But Jefferson County’s juvenile homicide rate of 4.7 slayings per 100,000 children was more than twice the national rate of 2.1 from 2010-19, data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio said Wednesday keeping school bus stops safe has to be a “community issue.” A bus driver shortage has already left JCPS running fewer bus routes than it should be, he said.
“We should have 900-and-something but we have 770 … We struggle to run 770 bus lines with drivers. And so, I would say, once again, how are we going to man, or what would we do, with 770 bus stops that are in our community?”
Pollio said JCPS wants to be part of the solution to youth gun violence but should not be expected to solve the crisis on its own.
“I got asked recently in a meeting I was at with community leaders, ‘What are we doing about homelessness in JCPS?’ And that really bothers me,” he said. “We are educators in a school system. And yes, we’ve got to provide these services to our kids. But I just don’t know when in our nation the school became the answer to all of our community’s problems and ills.”
Many local leaders expressed frustration with violence in the community and encouraged community members to get involved in the wake of Wednesday’s events.
“My job is to pass laws,” said Metro Councilman Jecorey Arthur, D-4th District. “Mayor Fischer’s job is to make sure that those laws actually happen. The chief’s job is to make sure those laws are enforced. What is your job? Everyone in Louisville is responsible for Louisville.”
Councilman Anthony Piagentini, R-19th District, agreed, saying: “If you weren’t plugged in and engaged in this problem, then you are part of the problem.”
But not all were unified in their responses.
Comments from LMPD Chief Erika Shields in the wake of Wednesday’s shooting calling for JCPS to put officers in schools drew criticism from some.
“We can’t sit here with our thumbs up our ass, do nothing different and think we won’t be back at this podium,” she said at a press conference Wednesday.
JCPS board member Chris Kolb, a staunch opponent to school police, called Shields’ remarks “shameful and reprehensible.”
“I am absolutely disgusted that it took @LMPD Chief Shields less than six hours to cynically use the murder of a child to push for a measure that will do nothing to improve safety and will further marginalize black students,” Kolb tweeted.
LMPD pulled out all of its officers, which made up the majority of school resource officers at the time, in July 2019 due to budget cuts. The district’s school board later ended the remaining contracts for police.
For now, Pollio said, JCPS personnel are planning to be at the bus stop early Thursday morning and possibly throughout the week.
“We do stay at an event for as long as we’re needed,” said Sircy, the JCPS counselor. “So, depending on the situation, we may stay for half a day, and we have stayed at a school for as long as a week before just to provide more intensive, wrap-around counseling support services to students that need that.”
courierjournal.com
