Shooting at Senior Skip Day in Greenbelt continues to raise concerns about youth violence

Hordes of screaming Students ran out of the pavilion and jumped over a chain-link fence. A student filming the events called out to his friend, panting and, fleeing for his life, “Hurry, hurry, hurry, brother. Man, they shoot…”

Although While “Senior Skip Day” is not sanctioned at most schools, students across the country take part in the tradition as a final farewell with friends before graduation. But the Greenbelt shooting that injured five teenagers ages 16 to 18 has left Prince George's officials and community members grappling with how to handle future Skip Day events and wondering if Communication and coordination between law enforcement and schools could have been improved in advance.

The shooting also raised renewed concerns about juvenile crime in Prince George's, where The county council passed emergency legislation that would allow targeted curfews for teenagers after hordes of teenagers stormed the National Harbor the same weekend as the Greenbelt shooting.

“This is the most exciting time of year for our children preparing for graduation, seniors trying to have fun together, the final days of their senior year punctuated by violence,” said Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks ( D) said after the shooting. “We need to get these guns off the streets.”

Since the shooting, a trailer camera has been set up outside Schrom Hills Park, and park rangers will be stationed at the park on weekday afternoons, supplemented by police patrols, Greenbelt Police Chief Richard Bowers said. While the city's park rangers patrol regularly, there were no surveillance cameras in the park at the time of the shooting, Bowers said at a news conference.

“We will have a strong presence at the facility … until school is out, so we will make sure this incident does not happen again at the facility,” Bowers said.

Police have not announced any arrests, but Bowers said at a Greenbelt City Council meeting after the shooting that investigators were working on “a variety of leads” and had been working up to 20 hours a day. No possible motive has been revealed. Two of the five injured male teenagers remained hospitalized Wednesday, according to Greenbelt police.

Students did not start the day in Greenbelt on this Friday. A A social media post shared that morning asked teens to meet at Pope's Creek Park at a gated community at 11 a.m. for Senior Skip Day, according to Bowie police said Lt. Robert Stevenson.

At 10:42 a.m., Bowie police received the first call about disorderly conduct from a large gathering of teenagers around Pope's Creek Park with water guns and airsoft guns and loud music, Stevenson said. More than 200 young people were gathered.

“It was completely overwhelmed,” Stevenson said. “Traffic there was kind of at a standstill…So if you lived in the neighborhood, you were basically excluded from your own neighborhood.”

It took about two hours for the group to fully disperse, Stevenson said. There are no problems other than dealing with the large volume of traffic, he said. Then, around 12:45 p.m., an officer said the teens were headed to Jericho Park in Bowie, about five miles away.

Once again, Bowie police dispersed about 200 youths, this time with the help of Prince George's County police.

Stevenson said officials knew there was a skip day every year and they tried to plan ahead with park rangers. However, authorities are not told exactly when the events will occur. This makes it difficult to track crowds.

“The crazy thing about these meetings is that they happen in real time and are updated through the apps they use,” Stevenson said. “Everyone is getting this information at the same time, in real time, and so they're not just mobilizing from Bowie… There was just a mass influx of kids everywhere.”

The teens arrived in nearby Greenbelt around 2:30 p.m., but this time there appeared to be 500 to 600 students at Schrom Hills Park on Hanover Parkway, according to Greenbelt police.

“This park is not big, so there are a lot of kids crowded into this particular area,” Bowers said at a news conference. He also said park rangers were patrolling the park around 1:30 p.m. and it was empty.

According to Bowers, the call came in for disorderly conduct, loud noise and parking complaints.

A responding Greenbelt police officer requested assistance and withdrew police Greenbelt, Berwyn Heights, Maryland State and Prince George's County. They were trying to control traffic and crowds, Bowers said.

Bowers told the city council that while the crowd was large at the time of the initial police response, it was “generally well behaved.”

“The decision was made at that time that we would monitor this crowd. Given the number of officers and the number of people involved, it would have been impossible to remove them all from the park,” Bowers said.

As officers on scene concluded their briefing, they walked toward the crowd and heard gunshots, Bowers said. A total of ten shots were fired.

Bowers said officers were on scene for about 10 to 15 minutes before the shooting occurred. When the shots rang out, the teens began fleeing toward Hanover Parkway, and police believe the gunman “left with them,” Bowers said.

Video footage from that day shows dozens of youths fleeing the area. Some piled into cars but remained stuck in the parking lot for several minutes as many drivers tried to flee the park and a rush of emergency responders arrived at the same time.

“Was that a real weapon?” one student shouted in disbelief.

“Dog, that could have been us,” a friend of his remarked later as they watched students being transported to the hospital. Bowers said there was such a congestion that firefighters couldn't get into the facility for more than 20 minutes and that the medical care provided by officers was “potentially life-saving.”

Jonathan Briggs, a school board member whose district includes Greenbelt, said he learned of the shooting through a text message from another school board member who happened to be at Eleanor Roosevelt High when the lockdown was in place. Briggs said the injured students were from Bowie High School, Largo High School and Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro.

School officials have told board members they are paying attention to conversations and have already heard rumors of an event this week.

The Prince George's County School System, Maryland's second-largest district, said in a statement that senior skipping events were not approved.

“Student safety and well-being remain our priority, and mental health counseling and support services are available to students and staff,” Prince George's County Public Schools said in a statement. “This week, additional security and crisis team members are on site at the affected schools.”

At the City Council meeting after the shooting, Bowers answered questions from council members about whether there could have been better coordination between agencies, as high school students roamed the county for hours before the shooting.

He said the department will work to better coordinate with school resource officers to be more proactive and has already begun discussions with city police departments about the future. But it's challenging because students make their plans on social media and a location isn't announced until “close to the event,” Bowers said.

“The district police are taking care of it, all the city authorities are taking care of it. And to make sure we're all a little bit more prepared next year… sort of a roundtable date in early February, March before we get to that point,” Bowers said.

Lateshia Beachum contributed to this report.