The 16-year-old who allegedly gunned down a classmate Friday on his first day at a Maryland high school has been arrested, police announced Saturday.
Jaylen Rushawn Prince has been charged as an adult with murder, as well as first and second-degree assault and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony/crime of violence, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office said.
The young accused killer was caught at a nearby apartment complex just minutes after Friday’s fatal shooting at Joppatowne High School — and officers caught him trying to break into a home in a desperate attempt to hide from authorities.
What unfolded between Prince and his alleged victim, 15-year-old Warren Curtis Grant, is still unclear, but police said the two boys knew one another.
Police say Prince fired a single shot in a first-floor boy’s bathroom following an altercation around 12:35 p.m. It was Prince’s first day at Joppatowne High School, where classes began on Tuesday.
Students dragged the wounded Grant into the hallway, and school nurses attended to him before he was airlifted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he later died.
Prince fled the school but was taken into custody around 12:50 p.m. He was not identified until Saturday afternoon.
The teen gunman is previously known to law enforcement. Police could not say whether he had a juvenile record, but said calls for service had involved Prince in the past.
“We’ve had more than 10 incidents since 2022 where the suspect was either the victim, witness or the suspect in Harford County Sheriff’s Office investigations,” officials said Friday night.
A firearm has still not been recovered.
The shooting scare comes just two days after 14-year-old Colt Gray allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High School in northern Georgia, killing two students and two teachers and wounding nine others.
Colt and his father Colin Gray, who allegedly purchased the AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre for him for Christmas — months after the boy was accused of making school shooting threats. Both have been arrested and charged with murder.
The pair made their initial appearances in court on Friday, where they learned they could spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
