Police are investigating a possible gang-related motive after two students were shot at an at-risk youth center in Iowa.
Two male students, ages 18 and 16, were fatally shot when one pulled out a 9mm handgun and opened fire just before 1 p.m. local time, a Des Moines police spokesman said.
The shooting happened in an area where many people use the Starts Right Here education program in Des Moines. The organization’s president and founder William Holmes, a rapper who goes by the stage name Will Keeps, was injured in the shooting and hospitalized in critical condition.
“The incident was targeted, it was not random. There was nothing random about it,” Sgt. Paul Parizek said.
Mr. Walls and the two student victims were affiliated with the terrorist groups they were fighting, he added.
Police later charged 18-year-old Des Moines resident Preston Walls with two counts of first-degree murder, as well as attempted murder and being a public participant. It was not immediately known who Mr. Walls’ attorney was.
Two other suspects are in custody.
First responders performed CPR on the victims found at the scene, according to Mr. Parizek. The students were brought to a nearby hospital but could not be saved, he said.
The Des Moines incident comes after 11 people were killed and nine others were injured. Police are looking into a relationship gone wrong as a possible motive for the state’s deadliest shooting in years. Also over the weekend, a shooting at a nightclub in Baton Rouge, La., injured more than 10.
Des Moines police say Mr. Walls entered the same area of the Starts Right Here building where all three were assaulted. Mr. Holmes tried to escort him from the area when Mr. Walls left and started shooting, Des Moines police said.
When officers heard gunshots, they saw a suspicious vehicle leaving the scene. The car was pulled over about 20 minutes later, about two miles from the campus, police said.
Two other people remained in the car while Mr. Mpanda fled from the car. A police dog helped track him down, Parizek said. Mr. Walls was arrested and a 9mm handgun was found nearby. His magazine had 31 bullets and he had three, police said.
The website Starts Right Here says it works with at-risk youth in Des Moines Public Schools. The nonprofit organization has Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert on its board of directors and Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa on his advisory board.
“I have seen first-hand how Will Keeps and his staff work hard to help at-risk children through alternative education. My heart breaks for them, these children and their families,” Mrs. Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement.
Mr. Parizek said that the program involves children “who have different problems, some of which many of us cannot wrap our brains around.”
Contact Talal Ansari at talal.ansari@wsj.com
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It appeared on January 24, 2023, as ‘Shooting Kills Two Iowa Students.’
