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http://dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2005/12/17/20051217-A1-04.html&chck=t
ASSAILANT AT LARGE
Linden-McKinley student shot in back during fight
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Alayna DeMartini and Jim Woods
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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</td></tr> <tr><td class="credit" width="200"> NEAL C . LAURON | DISPATCH </td></tr> <tr><td class="cutline" width="200">Columbus police officers investigate the scene of a shooting near the entrance of Linden-McKinley High School. The victim was in stable condition. </td></tr> </tbody></table> </td></tr> </tbody></table>
A Linden-McKinley High School sophomore was shot near the school’s entrance yesterday afternoon, shortly after classes let out.
Two groups of students exchanged angry words at the intersection of Duxberry and Medina avenues, witnesses said. Then the argument heated up.
"This dude just pulled out a gun and everyone started running," said Eric Turner, a junior at Linden-McKinley.
Columbus police say several people pulled out guns. Shots were fired about 2:45 p.m. and the group scattered.
Justin Williams, 16, was hit.
"He was walking by — wrong place, wrong time," said Robert Cochran, a junior member of Linden-McKinley’s varsity basketball team. Cochran knows Williams, who plays guard and forward on the school’s junior-varsity basketball team.
With a bullet wound in his back, Williams ran inside the school for help. He was taken to OSU Medical Center, where he was in stable condition last night, police said.
What touched off the fight remains under investigation.
The shooting occurred about 100 yards from the front door of the school.
A woman who lives across the street from the school and has a grandson who goes there said she was looking out the window and saw three or four boys smoking cigarettes on the corner before school dismissed. She thought nothing of it.
But then a few minutes later, she heard three or four gunshots and looked out the window again. Students were running back toward the school.
Because the shooter hasn’t been caught, the woman didn’t want her name used.
Neither did her grandson, who said he briefly stopped at his grandmother’s house and had gone back outside just before the shooting occurred.
"People started running as they heard the gun," he said. He quickly ducked back inside the house.
Because of the shooting, Linden-McKinley canceled its basketball game with Beechcroft High School last night at Beechcroft, as well as a home girls’ basketball game with Beechcroft.
"We just couldn’t go forward," Cochran said.
When she heard about the incident, Queena Smith left work and rushed to the school. She wanted to check on her daughter and brother, both students there.
"I just panicked," she said.
Although she said she’s confident that both don’t hang out in bad crowds, she was worried that they might have been hurt if they were near the shooting.
"It’s a big deal, but people aren’t surprised" about the shooting, Smith said. "It’s reality these days. It’s sad to say."
The Columbus police officer who works at the high school was inside the school building at the time of the shooting, said Michael Straughter, spokesman for the Columbus Public Schools.
Parents, he said, shouldn’t worry about the threat of gunfire at school.
"We have zero tolerance for weapons and we will take the proper actions," Straughter said.
In the South Linden neighborhood where the school’s located, it’s not unusual to hear gunshots or see youths carrying pistols, said Turner, 16.
"You see it all the time around here," he said. "It’s like every other day, someone’s visiting a funeral home."
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