A shooting at a school bus stop in Louisville, Kentucky, killed a 16-year-old boy and injured two others on Wednesday.
The incident occurred at around 6:30 a.m. while the three children were waiting for a bus when they were shot in a drive-by shooting.
According to authorities, one of the injured children, a 14-year-old boy, is being treated in the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. The second child, a 14-year-old girl, was treated on the scene for minor injuries.
Shortly after the “traumatizing” incident, the school bus arrived, along with another school bus with middle schoolers nearby.
Mark Pence, a witness to the shooting, told WHAS-TV, “I had to hold a little boy’s wound today and tell him he’s gonna be OK.”
The occupants of a grey Jeep in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting are being pursued by police.
Tyree Smith, a junior at Eastern High School, was recognized as the child who died.
Tyree’s mother, Sherita Smith, said during a vigil Wednesday evening: “My child is 16 years old. He got great grades, he got a strong family background … So what am I supposed to do when I guide my son down the right path, and he gets killed and hurt by senseless violence?”
His mother said she had just got off the phone with her son not long before the shooting.
She said, “My son walked out the door at 6:15. He called me at 6:18 and said, ‘Mama, I got shot.”
This violence is the latest sign of a country that has seen a huge increase in shootings these past two years.
In 2021, about 3,000 young people aged 17 and under were shot, including nearly 600 children aged 11 and under.
