HOUSTON – For the second week in a row, students returned to school with grief counselors, this time after a student was gunned down and another was grazed by a bullet Tuesday afternoon while walking near Lamar High School.
According to police, an 18-year-old student was walking with a female freshman, blocks away from the campus, when he was targeted and shot by a masked gunman.
Police said after the 18-year-old fell to the ground, the gunman stood over him and fired several more rounds.
The attack comes just days after two other high school students died in a murder-suicide.
Security at the school was heightened, and students are having trouble coping with the loss of three classmates due to gun violence in a matter of days.
“I don’t think any of us are coping with (the murder-suicide) very well,” said student Lydia Long. “I don’t think we’re over it yet and then this happens and just adds on to it.”
The senior who was killed Tuesday was popular among his classmates, and some students even speculated that rumors had been going around the shooting was going to happen.
“When I was in seventh period everybody said that they knew like it was about to happen,” Angel Riggins, a student at the school, said. “Because, they said he got into an argument, I think … I don’t know what he was doing or why they were back there but I guess wrong place wrong time.”
The gunman jumped in a vehicle occupied by two other people and fled the scene, police said.
Police confirmed late Tuesday the vehicle, described as a black Subaru with a plastic bag covering the rear passenger window, had been found abandoned in the Third Ward.
Though both the murder-suicide and Tuesday’s shooting were isolated events, students said they no longer feel safe on the campus.
“It’s going to take time for our feeling of safety to come back,” said student Lucas Montes.
The school is aware of the safety concerns and the principal has been taking steps to make sure students can get through the incidents as best they can.
“I don’t want to be back,” Riggins said. “Like it’s not safe at all. The principal, she’s like grieving with everybody nicely. She’s going to classrooms, talking to the students making sure they’re alright. Overall I don’t think everybody’s prepared for everything. So I think we actually need a break. Like take a day off.”
To compound the loss, many students told KPRC2 the will be going to the funeral of the two students killed in a murder-suicide after school.
The gunman and other occupants of the getaway car involved in Tuesday’s shooting are still at large.