Classmates and faculty at Birmingham’s G.W. Carver High School are mourning a graduating senior who was shot to death during a fight Monday afternoon.
“There’s a very strong sense of hurt, sadness. There’s a lot of grief,’’ said principal Tikki Hines. “The staff is really upset. The students are really upset.”
Dwaine Thomas, a 17-year-old baseball player for the Carver Rams, died Monday evening in the parking lot of a Tuscaloosa Avenue S.W. apartment complex. On Tuesday, homicide detectives were interviewing a person of interest in the fatal shooting, but no charges had yet been filed.
Officers were responding to an unrelated call shortly before 5:30 p.m. Monday when the officer saw a physical altercation taking place in the parking lot of the complex. Thomas, police said, “was getting the best of the suspect,’’ during the altercation.
As the officer pulled up, said Sgt. Rod Mauldin, the suspect retrieved a firearm from a vehicle and shot Thomas.
Thomas was found on the ground between two cars and suffering from a gunshot wound, Mauldin said. He was pronounced dead on the scene at 5:55 p.m.
The officer also saw the suspect, who tried to flee the scene. He engaged in a brief pursuit with the suspect, who got away after fleeing in a small blue sedan.
Mauldin said the fight was observed and recorded by onlookers.
“The sad reality is there were a lot of people out here today that observed the incident that took place,” Mauldin said.
Dwaine is one of nine Birmingham City Schools students killed this year in the city limits. Additionally, four other teens have died in gun violence countywide.
“We have suffered the tragic loss of a student in Birmingham City Schools, and our hearts are saddened,’’ said Superintendent Mark Sullivan. “”Our thoughts and prayers are with Dwaine’s family and his family of teachers and friends at Carver.”
Hines said Thomas was a typical teen, known for following school rules and minding his own business.
“He was a great kid. Was he perfect? No,’’ she said. “I just felt like it was too soon.”
Thomas had finished his graduation requirements in December and was co-oping this semester.
“His coaches were working to try to get him a baseball scholarship,’’ Hines said. “A lot of times we encourage the students to leave, go off, try school and if not, definitely figure out what kind of career or skill you want to develop It’s our job to try to help them figure it out.”
“We’re trying to figure out to best help the students get through the grieving process as well as assess our needs.”
Counselors were at the school Tuesday, but many were finding consolation in each other.
“This generation of students, they don’t like to communicate their hurt and grief to people they don’t know,’’ she said. “They’ll turn to each other and talk to each other.”
She said Thomas’s teammates met as a group on Tuesday. “They shared some happy moments and then they asked the (counselors) to leave so they could talk directly among themselves and their coaches,’’ she said. “That’s who they feel comfortable talking to and being vulnerable.”
Hines said it’s always hard for school faculty and staff to lose a student.
“You don’t make sense of it,’’ she said. “I just have to rely on my spiritual relationship to help me through it.”
“It’s hard when you don’t have control over what happens to them once they leave the campus,’’ she said.
Hines said she wants this generation of children to value life.
“I don’t want them to feel a sense of hopelessness,’’ she said. “Sometimes a beef or a problem becomes blown way up out of proportion.”
“If you have a problem with one person, you’re probably going to have a problem with 10,’’ she said. “It’s very much an eye for an eye with these children.”
“A lot of them are just hurt. We just try to be there to address the hurt,’’ she said. “I wish they valued life better than they did and could see past the immediate cause and effect of situations.”
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