Shocked teens hold vigil: ‘You could never think it was going to happen here’

Hundreds of people gathered by the Butler High School flagpole Monday evening for a vigil in memory of sophomore Bobby McKeithen, who was shot inside the school Monday morning. He died at the hospital.

Holding candles and blue and white balloons, Butler students greeted one another with hugs and tears.

Many of them heard or saw the shooting, which happened in a crowded hallway just as students were heading to the first class of the day.

Sophomore Yahir Almanza, 15, came into the hallway just as the shooting happened.

“I just see a bunch of kids, just running, and I see a kid on the ground. And my first reaction was what do I do — I stood in shock for a good five seconds. Like, should I run? Or what should I do?” he asked.

Almanza ended up in a math classroom, he said, right next to the classroom where 16-year-old Butler freshman Jatwan Craig Cuffie was arrested minutes later.

“From next door you could hear screams from the police coming in, saying hands up, hands up,” he said. “It was that closeness ... just being scared and you could never think it was going to happen here.”

Almanza and two friends said they didn’t know McKeithen very well, but they knew he was a friendly, goofy guy people enjoyed being around.

McKeithen turned 16 this month.

At the vigil, one student who identified herself as a cheerleader criticized news stories about the shooting that called it an isolated incident.

“Everyone at that time that was in 500 hall like me, and saw what happened, (I know) that you were in fear for your life as well,” she said.

Almanza echoed this message after the vigil, saying that dozens of students were vulnerable as soon as shots went off in the crowded hall. While officials later said the shooting followed a fight between two students, the students in the hallway assumed they were all potential victims.

Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said the shooting may have been related to bullying. The cheerleader seemed to address that idea, too, telling students they shouldn’t blame themselves for one person’s decision to bring a gun to a fight.

“The first thing that I did was feel guilty,” she said. “Please don’t feel guilty. Because there is nothing that we could have done. Because I promise you that if anyone would have possibly known that something like this would happen, we as students would have stopped or tried to do something.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2018 at 9:41 PM.