INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD is investigating a shooting outside an northeast side Indianapolis school that caused the death of a student.
According to police, officers responded to the 2200 block of Ralston Avenue for a report of a person shot. The shooting location returns as Kipp Indy Legacy High School, near the Edna Martin Christian Center in Martindale Brightwood.
One teenage victim was found with gunshot injuries in critical condition. The teenager was later pronounced deceased.
According to KIPP Indy schools, the victim was a student at KIPP Legacy High School.
IMPD arrested a 15-year-old male after the shooting. The suspect is a teenager but not a student of KIPP Legacy High School.
The shooting upset KIPP Legacy High School parents such as Shalanda Johnson.
"How these kids can get a hold of these guns and shoot other kids...it's crazy," Johnson said. "My son is 15. That could've been my kid."
Community mentor Kareem Hines said the shooting is a sign of a larger problem of mental trauma affecting Indianapolis teenagers.
"We have to become tutors, we have to become therapists, we have to become coaches, we have to allow our kids a space to let this pain out," Hines said. "Music, spoken word, art, poetry. We have to be unconventional in our approach to reach these kids because we're going to continue to lose them unfortunately."
Hines said teenagers need to understand that acting on anger will only make their pain worse.
"Your life is worth more than a pistol," Hines said. "Your life is worth more than a one-second emotional feeling that's going to dictate the rest of your life."
Police are investigating a disturbance they say occurred at the school but are not clear whether there is a connection with the shooting.
Support will be available on-site on Monday for students and staff of the school, KIPP Indy said.
In August, two students were arrested at the school for bringing handguns and machine gun conversions devices to school.
Edna Martin Christian Center declined to comment to WRTV.
IMPD Commander Matt Thomas had a message for the community. He expressed his frustration with youth violence and the responsibility of the community in preventing it:
"We have to do better and we owe it to our youth to lead the way in doing that. We have to come together as a community and come up with solutions that take guns out of the hands of youth and prevent acts like this. We have to wrap our arms around our youth, we have to open our hearts.Violence is preventable and as a community its our responsibility to come together and stop incidents like this from occurring. Our officers are frustrated, we're tired of responding to incidents of youth violence. We have so many youth in this community that have so much potential and we have an example today where life has been lost and that person is not going to be able to achieve their potential."
