A 13-year-old accused of shooting his father dead outside of a Louisiana school is facing murder charges, according to police.
The shooting unfolded in the community of Hammond, a city 45 miles northwest of New Orleans. The incident began when a teenager refused to get out of a car while in the carpool line outside of his school on April 14, according to a statement from the Hammond Police Department.
A school resource officer was notified of the incident by staff at Tangipahoa Alternative School and, along with an HPD lieutenant, tried to contact the teenager and his father.
Eventually, the boy’s father decided to take his son home.
As the car pulled away, the resource officer heard what he believed to be gunshots, the statement read.
Hammond Police Chief Edwin Bergeron Jr. told reporters that the car sped forward and crashed into a nearby home, with a “5-or-6-year-old” also inside the vehicle.
Following the crash, the teenager emerged, brandished a firearm and began heading towards the school.
The police chief said that the school resource officer moved to intercept the child.
“We don’t know what his intentions were,” Bergeron Jr. said, referring to the boy. “We don’t know if he was going to take it further.
“But our trained officer, our officer who’s assigned to that school, put himself in danger, disarmed the shooter and was able to take him into custody.”
The young child inside the vehicle, who was being taken to another school that morning, was uninjured and released to a family member.
The father was rushed to North Oaks Medical Center following the incident, where police say he eventually succumbed to his injuries.
The suspect is expected to face second-degree murder charges.
Authorities have yet to confirm a motive behind the shooting or how the teenager came to be in possession of the weapon.
“Sometimes, when evil things are going to happen, they just happen,” Bergeron told reporters. “We can do the best we can to stop them.
“I believe our lieutenant’s actions today could have stopped something much worse.”
A woman, identified only as Anita, told WWL-TV that the car crashed through her bedroom wall while she was sleeping.
“I woke up, and the little boy in the car was screaming, I was screaming,” she said. “I jumped on the hood to get out of my room, because the car was so far in my room.”
Anita told the network that she saw a bullet hole in the vehicle’s window and immediately pulled the youngster from the car.
“He was like ‘my uncle shot my dad,’” she added. “He just kept saying that over and over and over.”
During the shooting, the nearby school was plunged into a complete lockdown.
“When the code went out, in a matter of minutes – probably less than a minute – every student was in a classroom,” Ronald Genco, assistant superintendent of Tangipahoa Parish School System, told reporters. “The doors were locked to the classroom and to the building.”
The scene has since been declared safe, according to the HPD statement.
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