Police are investigating a possible gang-related motive after two students were shot dead at an Iowa education center for at-risk youth.
Two male students, 18 years old and 16 years old, were fatally shot when a suspect pulled out a 9mm handgun and began firing just before 1 p.m. local time, a spokesperson for Des Moines Police said.
The gunfire broke out inside a common area used by the Starts Right Here education program in Des Moines. The organization’s president and founder
William Holmes,
a rapper who performs under the name Will Keeps, was injured in the shooting and remains hospitalized in a serious condition.
“The incident was definitely targeted, it was not random. There was nothing random about this,” Sgt.
Paul Parizek
said.
Mr. Walls and the two student victims were affiliated with rival gangs, he added.
Police later charged 18-year-old Des Moines resident Preston Walls with two counts of first-degree murder, along with attempted murder and gang participation. It was not clear who was serving as Mr. Walls’s attorney.
Two other suspects remain in custody.
First responders performed CPR on the victims found at the scene, according to Mr. Parizek. The students were brought to a local hospital but couldn’t be saved, he said.
The Des Moines incident comes after a mass shooting in California over the weekend left 11 people dead and another nine injured. Police are looking at a troubled romantic relationship as a possible motive for the state’s deadliest mass shooting in years. Also over the weekend, a nightclub shooting in Baton Rouge, La., injured over 10.
Des Moines police said Mr. Walls entered a common area at the Starts Right Here building where all three victims were. Mr. Holmes attempted to escort him from the area when Mr. Walls pulled away and began to shoot, Des Moines police said.
Police responding to reports of gunfire saw a suspicious vehicle leaving the area. The automobile was pulled over about 20 minutes later, roughly 2 miles from the education center, police said.
Two other people stayed in the car while Mr. Walls ran from the vehicle. A police dog helped track him down, Mr. Parizek said. Mr. Walls was taken into custody and a 9mm handgun was found nearby. Its ammunition magazine had a capacity of 31 rounds and contained three, police said.
The Starts Right Here website said it works with at-risk youth in the Des Moines Public Schools. The nonprofit has Des Moines Police Department Chief
Dana Wingert
on its board of directors and Iowa Gov.
Kim Reynolds
on its advisory board.
“I’ve seen first-hand how hard Will Keeps and his staff work to help at-risk kids through this alternative education program. My heart breaks for them, these kids and their families,” Ms. Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement.
Mr. Parizek said the program deals with children “with a variety of challenges, some that many of us can’t wrap our brain around.”
Write to Talal Ansari at talal.ansari@wsj.com
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Appeared in the January 24, 2023, print edition as ‘Shooting Kills Two Students In Iowa.’