CLEVELAND — A 16-year-old boy remains in critical condition as of Tuesday evening after a shooting roughly a block away from James Ford Rhodes High School on Cleveland’s west side, police and EMS officials confirmed. The incident prompted an hours long lockdown of the high school as parents anxiously waited to sign their children out of class.
According to police and witnesses, the teenager was walking to school near the 5200 block of Stickney Road around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday when a red car pulled up alongside him. The 16-year-old was shot once in the head, police said, and was rushed to MetroHealth Hospital.
“They [were] walking. They [were] walking perfectly fine. Everything was good. [The victim turned] the corner and shots go down and he starts running. That’s all I can say,” one student who witnessed the incident said. “It’s something you get used to. It’s something you get used to living in Cleveland.”
Police said a male has been detained, although it remains unclear if any charges have been filed. The investigation remains ongoing.
Immediately after the shooting, students said administrators declared a ‘Code Blue’ and students were locked down in place. One parent who did not want to be identified was in the school as the lockdown was issued.
“You could actually smell the [gun powder] outside,” the parent said. “They locked down all the classrooms and wouldn’t let anybody out.”
After the lockdown was initiated, scores of parents and loved ones began gathering outside the school waiting for school officials to begin systematically dismissing students one by one.
“These are all the parents that have been standing here for a half hour now or longer to get their kids out of the school because they will not release them,” said Michael McGovern as he pointed to the large crowd of parents outside the main entrance. “I’ve been standing out there for a good 45 minutes waiting for my son to get released. Yeah, [I was worried]. I’ve been in contact with him the whole time via cell phone though.”
Although school officials did issue an all-call to students’ families, many parents were notified of the incident and lockdown through text and social media messages from their children.
“I got a text from [my] son and a message on Facebook from my niece. They both said they were on lockdown. Code Blue. He sent me pictures of everything outside of his classroom,” said Erin McCormack, whose son and two nieces attend Rhodes High School. “People’s babies are getting hurt. This is crazy. Just crazy.”
Neither the identity of the victim nor the male that was detained by police have been released yet.
