www.cnn.com – 2023-06-08 02:33:00
CNN
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An 18-year-old graduate, Shawn Jackson, and his 36-year-old stepfather, Renzo Smith, were killed in a shooting after a high school commencement ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, Tuesday evening that left five others injured, police said Wednesday.
A suspect, 19-year-old Amari Pollard, was arraigned Wednesday morning on two counts of second-degree murder and is being held without bail, interim Police Chief Rick Edwards said at a news conference. Pollard had an ongoing dispute with the 18-year-old victim and it was a targeted attack, Edwards said. Further charges are pending, he added.
He has not yet hired an attorney and is due back in court June 21, according to Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin.
A 9-year-old girl who was struck and injured by a car in the chaos that followed the shooting is also related to the family of the two people who were killed. She is currently recovering from very minor injuries, Edwards said. The remaining victims are all in non-life-threatening condition, he said.
The gunman opened fire in Monroe Park, where hundreds of graduates and guests had gathered across the street from the Altria Theater, where Huguenot High School held the ceremony.
“I didn’t know Shawn, but I shook his hand and wished him congratulations about 20 minutes before he died,” Jason Kamras, the superintendent of Richmond Public Schools, said Wednesday. “I can’t shake the image of him receiving CPR on the ground, still in his graduation gown.”
The shooting is one of at least 279 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The violence added Richmond to a long list of communities across the country to grapple with the terror of mass shootings in recent months, including those at a mall in Texas, a school in Tennessee, a bank in Kentucky and near a beach in South Florida.
“This should have been a safe space,” Edwards said Tuesday night. “It’s just incredibly tragic that someone decided to bring a gun to this incident and rain terror on our community.”
The shooting happened just before 5:15 p.m., when three off-duty officers who were working security at the ceremony heard gunshots and reported them on their radios, and officers working traffic duty nearby responded, Edwards said.
“The initial officers indicated there was a barrage of gunfire, but it was over quickly,” he added.
The suspect fled on foot and was found and detained nearby by security officers with nearby Virginia Commonwealth University, Edwards said. Monroe Park is part of VCU’s Monroe Park campus.
Police initially…
