Teen dead in Tuesday night Laurel shooting
Tamerick Drummond was shot to death just hours before he turned 17.
Police were dispatched to the intersection of South 19th Avenue and Lincoln Street in Laurel around 10 p.m. Tuesday where they found Drummond suffering from a gunshot wound.
Laurel Police said Mekel Crumbly, 18, of Laurel, has been charged with murder.
Drummond's death is Laurel's first homicide of 2016.
Drummond, a student at Laurel High School, was taken to the emergency room at South Central Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
The Laurel School District released a statement: "We are saddened by the tragic loss of a member of the Laurel School District family. Our priority is to support our students and teachers as they grieve the loss of a student and classmate. We have provided additional counseling support at the high school for our students as they process their grief. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family during this extremely difficult time."
A friend of Drummond who goes by the Facebook name Qb Jy, but his personalized Facebook URL is jacquez.fountain.5, posted a live video early Wednesday morning about the incident. He describes seeing Drummond walking up the road with a friend, but he could still see them. Drummond had a paintball gun tucked in his pants because they had been playing paintball, according to Qb Jy.
Qb Jy said a car went slowly up the road to where Drummond was standing with the friend. Then he said Crumbly allegedly got out of the vehicle and said, "What's up, thug?"
"I guess I thought they were going to fight one on one," Qb Jy said through tears. "As soon as he pulled (the gun) out, (inaudible) and them were like, Kel don't do it, Kel don't do it... He shot Tamerick. Tamerick ran, but he got shot, and he ran to his yard, and he ran to the house... he fell on the floor. After he fell, he was coughing up blood."
"When the bullet hit him in the chest, he didn't fall," Qb Jy said.
Qb Jy said there was a female in the car with Crumbly.
"He didn't have no gun for no reason," Qb Jy said. "I guess she knew what was going on. She didn't try to stop it."
He said the car, which he described as "a little gray car," drove off after the shooting.
"We were in the hospital, and we thought he was going to make it," he said. "We thought he was going to make it."
Qb Jy and others on Facebook allege that the shooting took place because the teens had dated the same girl.
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The Clarion-Ledger has reached out to Drummond's father via Facebook but has not yet received a response.