A teenage Oliver Citywide student is dead and his classmate is in jail after a Wednesday morning shooting outside the North Side special education school.
Derrick Harris, 15, was headed into the Brighton Road school around 7:25 a.m. when police say his classmate, 15-year-old Jaymier Perry, fired 11 rounds
Investigators wrote in the criminal complaint against Jaymier that security cameras captured a majority of the shooting. Two witnesses also saw the alleged assault and killing.
The camera footage showed a person they allege was Jaymier walking up the walkway and up the front steps toward the school building, where a tree blocks the camera. Derrick followed the same route in the same direction moments later, according to the complaint.
Derrick is captured falling backward down the steps, according to the complaint, where Jaymier allegedly punched and kicked the wounded teenager. A witness later told police they saw Jaymier standing over Derrick, continuing to fire and then pistol-whipping him.
Two witnesses described the alleged shooter as wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with distinct white lettering, according to the complaint. When responding officers came upon Jaymier walking on Marshall Avenue, he was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt with white lettering. He allegedly had a black 9mm handgun in his pocket. Police said the gun belonged to Jaymier’s mother.
Jaymier has been charged as an adult with homicide.
Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Wayne Walters said Oliver Citywide will be remote until at least after Memorial Day.
“We can and must do better,” Mayor Ed Gainey said in a statement. “We have to do better,” Mr. Walters echoed hours later. But it is the second time in less than a year and a half that a student has been gunned down outside the school.
In January 2022, 15-year-old Marquis Campbell was inside a school van parked outside the building, waiting to go home for the day. Two teens, later identified as brothers Eugene and Brandon Watson, walked up to the van and starting shooting. Marquis died a short time later at the hospital.
Wednesday’s shooting threw an already devastated school back into mourning. “I met with the school staff today and, again, they are traumatized — they are re-traumatized,” Mr. Walters said.
He called it unacceptable for teachers to have to normalize trauma and tragedy for students as part of their duties.
“It is unacceptable for a child to leave their home for school and not return,” Mr. Walters said. “It is unacceptable for students to not see schools as places for joy and learning but rather be subjected to premature grief and conflict.” Mr. Walters said this shooting has sparked discussions about the school’s place in the district.
“We will be thinking about what is the future of Oliver Citywide Academy in light of this tragedy,” he said, though he declined to give any specifics.
Teachers at the school normally go outside to greet students about 7:35 a.m., but some students arrive before that. Normal procedure is for students who arrive via school bus to stay on the bus until that time. It was unclear how Derrick or Jaymier arrived at school Wednesday morning.
About 14 children were already in the building when the gunfire started. Among them was Armani Turner’s son.
She said the driver who transports her son to and from school alerted her to the shooting. She eventually spoke with the school’s principal, who told her that her son was OK, and she’d since texted with her son.
“I’m relieved, but I’m still nervous,” she said as she waited on Brighton Road behind the school to pick up her son. “I just want this to stop happening so frequently.” Mr. Gainey called on society to “reclaim our children.”
“We have to begin putting our children first,” he said in a statement. “We have cultivated a culture of violence and death, celebrated guns, and glorified shooting. We have failed as a country to stop the proliferation of guns, and it is far too easy for a young person to get those guns and retaliate in the way our culture has glorified it.”
