HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) — Students have returned to school in a southwest Ohio district two days after authorities say a 14-year-old boy shot students in a cafeteria.
Madison Local Schools officials say staff members have joined students on their bus rides Wednesday morning and have given them a first-day-of-school style welcome at the campus just west of Middletown where some 1,600 students from pre-K through grade 12 attend. Police are on hand and crisis counselors are being made available in the schools.
There’s no immediate word on attendance figures.
The attorney for James Austin Hancock says the boy hasn’t been willing to talk much and appears to be “overcome” by the situation.
Attorney Ed Perry also tells The Associated Press that Hancock’s family wants the families of those hurt and the Madison Local Schools community in general to know that they are very concerned and saddened about them. They declined to talk with reporters Tuesday morning outside the juvenile courtroom where Perry entered a denial of charges including attempted murder for Hancock.
He says it’s been difficult to get the youth to talk with him, but he says he hopes that will change in the days ahead. Hancock is being held in juvenile detention pending an April 5 hearing.
Perry wasn’t aware of Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones’ contention that the youth should be prosecuted as an adult, but said that’s an issue “we will be concerned about.”