DAYTON — A local woman who graduated from the same school where a mass shooting took place said she knows some of the victims.
“They’re devastated,” Jamie Henson said today of the Benton, Kentucky, community, where two Marshall County High School students were killed Tuesday when a classmate opened fire. “It’s really close-knit. Everyone knows everyone, everybody’s friend with everybody else.”
Prosecutors said a 15-year-old boy is expected to be tried as an adult on two counts of murder. His name has not been released.
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Two students, both 15, were killed. Bailey Holt died at the school and Preston Cope died at a hospital. Eighteen other students were injured; 14 suffered gunshot wounds, including Dan Austin, whose friend Tristan Cline told “CBS This Morning” that he sprang to action after seeing Austin on the ground. “He was shot in the shoulder and he was scared. No one really knew what to do so I just put him in my car and drove as fast as I could,” Cline said.
Several victims — all between 14 and 18 — remain hospitalized. All are expected to survive.
Henson is a 2009 graduate of Marshall High School. Her best friend’s brother was inside the school when the shooting happened. He managed to get away from the shooter.
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“A lot of his friends and people that I know did get hurt,” Henson said.
Her family is originally from the Dayton area, and she just moved from Marshall County two weeks ago.
She first found out about Tuesday’s shooting through a friend’s Facebook post.
“I was just more concerned about how they were dealing with it,” she said.
A mass shooting is the last thing expected in the community six hours from the Miami Valley where everyone goes to the same churches, bonfires and watches high school basketball games together, she said.
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“You’re like, well, it’s not gonna happen here because we all know everybody. We don’t know anybody that would do that,” she said.
Henson said she’s not surprised the community is rallying together, and while she cannot be there, she’s trying to help her friends emotionally.
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