Second 18-year-old dies after shooting; county starts task force on deadly violence

A second 18-year-old has died after being shot late Tuesday afternoon along with a companion, a Suitland High School student, also 18, who died at the scene of the violence in a Forestville apartment complex.

Police said on Wednesday that Andre W. Shuford, 18, had died of his wounds in the wake of the shooting at an apartment complex in the 3700 block of Donnell Drive. His friend, Suitland High freshman Aaron Kidd, 18, was killed in the shooting Tuesday. Police said detectives do not know what motivated the shooting.

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Six Prince George’s County students have been killed during the 2012-13 school year as a result of violence.

On Twitter, Suitland responds

Residents react on Twitter after shootings claimed the lives of two students in two days.

Mourners gathered to remember 15-year-old Charles Walker Jr., a Prince George's teenager who was fatally shot Monday. (Hamil Harris/The Washington Post)

(Courtesy of the Kidd family) - Aaron Kidd.

Kidd’s killing marked six slayings of Prince George’s students since the school year began.

“It is just so devastating,” said Theresa Williams, mother of Aaron Kidd. “This should not have happened to any family.”

The violence has prompted the county to start a task force to address the slayings.

“When five high school students are killed within the 2012-2013 school year, we all demand both justice and an accounting for the circumstances that give rise to juvenile violence,” Police Chief Mark A. Magaw said Tuesday before the sixth student was shot.

The six cases are unrelated, officials said, and have occurred across the county. Two were gang-related, but with no dis­cern­ible pattern, law enforcement authorities and school officials are frustrated at the continuing violence.

Magaw said that members of the police department, prosecutors, school officials and representatives of interfaith and other nonprofit groups will work together in coming weeks to devise a plan to help stop the killings.

“If we knew the reasons why, then we would solve it,” said Charoscar Coleman, principal at Central High School in Capitol Heights, which lost a student walking to school in September.

On Monday, Charles Walker Jr. — known as “Chuck” or “CJ” — was walking down 28th Avenue carrying a bag of shoes. A vehicle carrying several people, at least one of them armed with a gun, pulled up. They tried to rob Walker of the shoes without even getting out of the vehicle, according to a law enforcement official. After a confrontation, Walker, 15, was fatally shot.

“The motive of this case is robbery,” Magaw said.

Although other jurisdictions in the region have seen some violence against teenagers, none has seen as many as has Prince George’s. In most of the cases outside the county, the killers knew their victims.

“I am really enraged that a young person in our community can’t walk the streets with a shopping bag without being shot in the back,” State’s Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks said.

Coleman said the shootings and their random nature are particularly frustrating for educators. “I’m a parent, too, with children in the school system,” Coleman said. “It scares me to death. These students have bright futures, and they were taken away.”

Grief counselors assembled at Suitland High School on Tuesday to help students and staff deal with Walker’s death. For some counselors, it is the third or fourth time they have been called to help students and teachers work through their grief.