GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The parents of a Gwinnett County student who was arrested after firing a gun at school said the shooting was the culmination of months of bullying that the school failed to stop.
Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne was at Shiloh High School in Lawrenceville Thursday, where 17-year-old Kaleb Henderson is accused of firing the gun on campus on Oct. 21. No one was hit or injured, but Kaleb is now in jail and facing charges.
Winne talked to Kaleb’s father, Decorian Henderson, who said his son admitted to firing the gun but said it was because he was at his wit’s end after months of harassment by another group of boys at the high school.
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“We had a man-to-man conversation and he said, ‘Dad I was just tired, the guys were just... there was too many of them. I cant beat them all. And I felt his pain,” ** said. “Like I felt it. scared. I was scared for him.”
New disciplinary rules went into effect in the district over the summer that put a focus on intervention before discipline and did away with attendance-related tribunals.
Some parents say that gives the school few resources to address problems like bullying.
Kalbe’s mother, Sonya Lucious said in the months before the shooting, she called and visited the high school numerous times about what she said was ongoing bullying of her son.
“I had been to the school about three times in the concerns of ongoing conflict and physical altercations with my son,” Lucious said.
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Lucious said she doesn’t know what the bullying was about, but his sister said Kaleb didn’t even know what it was about.
“That’s my best friend. He tells me everything,” Janiyah Henderson said. “(He said) kids were coming up to him wanting to jump him, but he don’t even know what the beef is about.”
Lucious said that early on, the school suspended a couple of students, but an administrator told her new Gwinnett school rules limited discipline options.
“If I was silent and just let this go on, then it would be nothing that I could say,” Lucious said.
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Kaleb’s attorney, Manny Arora, alleges that in the weeks before the shooting, seven young men even showed up when Kaleb served in-school suspension and four attempted to get into the room. They were angry about a fight Arora maintains that Kaleb didn’t start. Lucious had hoped a mediation with two of the young men resolved the issue, but it didn’t.
On Oct. 21, cellphone video captured a fight between Kaleb and another young man on camera minutes before Kaleb fired shots. Lucious said her son told her four or five boys had come to the school at dismissal and waited for him near the bus lanes. Kaleb tried unsuccessfully to avoid the boy who wanted to fight.
“After it was over, my son tried to retrieve his things, they tried to throw his book bag around,” Lucious said.
Arora said Kaleb got his bag and tried to leave the school, but the same boys came up in a car and started harassing him. That’s when Kaleb fired a gun.
Lucious said she had no idea her son was carrying a gun in his backpack and that she doesn’t know where it came from.
“I’m not justifying having a gun, but the point is, put yourself in the mind that’s getting relentlessly beat up, and you feel like there’s nothing more than you can do,” Arora said.
Winne spoke to Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, who said that for her, the issue is cut and dry: Don’t bring guns to school.
“If a child feels threatened, that needs to be clearly reported to all of the authorities, the school, the policing authorities,” Austin-Gatson said.
Lucious said she never went to the police about the bullying because she believed it was the school’s responsibility. And the school never gave her the full names of the other kids involved and Kaleb only gave her first names or Instagram names.
Kaleb voluntarily turned himself in at the jail, where he is still in custody.
A spokesman with the school district issued a statement, saying:
“Gwinnett County Public Schools is unable to comment on the incident that happened at Shiloh High School last week because it is an open criminal investigation. With that said, the possession and/or use of a firearm on school property is not only against district policy, it is against the law and violators will receive appropriate school disciplinary consequences and criminal charges.”
Kaleb’s dad said he wanted people to understand that his son was scared.
“My son is not a monster,” he said. “He’s a B-roll honor student.”
The shooting is just one of several violent incidents we’re reported recently near Gwinnett County Schools. Since Oct. 21 there has been a deadly shooting, a threat that sent a school into lockdown and a box cutter attack.
An emergency meeting was held Wednesday night to talk about the violence plaguing the county. The district has been considering adding metal detectors and security wands. The meeting ended without a specific plan to tackle the violence.
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