A teenager is facing an aggravated assault mass shooting charge in connection with a shooting Tuesday afternoon at Wilmer-Hutchins high school
Tracy Haynes, 17, was booked into Dallas County jail at 9:32 p.m. after turning himself in. His bail is set for $600,000 and it’s not immediately clear if he has an attorney. The arrest came hours after an on-campus shooting, which injured four students.
Antong Lucky, president of Urban Specialists, a community group that advocates against violence, said a relative called the organization’s helpline asking for assistance because the family member was worried for Haynes.
Lucky said the call was transferred to him at about 6 p.m., after he had already seen the “troubling” situation on the news.
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He had Haynes and family members meet him at the Urban Specialists office, located at 1401 Botham Jean Blvd., and talked to Haynes about turning himself in.
Lucky said Haynes wanted to turn himself in and told him: “I want to deal with this.”
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“I said, ‘Man, I’m impressed. I mean, you need to. You don’t need to run. You need to deal with this and face it head on,’” Lucky said. He added that it was an emotional talk, and a team-member prayed over Haynes.
Lucky said they then took Haynes to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center.
This isn’t the first time that families of suspects have reached out to Urban Specialists, though often they work with victims of violence, according to Lucky. And it’s a better situation, he said, than having Haynes — who he noted was 17 — on the run or considered armed and dangerous.
“A lot of times, it’s tough situation,” Lucky said. “We catch a bad rap for that, but we just, we believe in … convincing them to do the right thing. I believe in having that young man to deal with whatever is alleged against him, or whatever he’s done. That’s important.”
Related:Wilmer-Hutchins High School classes canceled for the rest of the week following shooting
The motive for the shooting was not publicly known Tuesday.
It was also not certain how the suspect managed to get a gun inside the school, which has metal detectors and a clear backpack policy. Christina Smith, Dallas ISD’s assistant chief of police, said during an afternoon press conference that the gun didn’t enter the building “during regular intake time.”
“It was not a failure of our staff, of our protocols or of the machinery that we have,” Smith said. When asked for more details, officials declined to comment further.
The Tuesday shooting also came just around a year after gunfire last erupted at the high school campus, wounding a student in the upper thigh.
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Cynthia Haynes, an aunt, told The Dallas Morning News Tuesday afternoon that she was “shocked” to hear her nephew was possibly involved. And after hearing news late Tuesday that Haynes had turned himself in, she said the family remained in disbelief.
“He was not raised like that,” Haynes, 52, said. “He came from a good family.”
