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“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.”
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