Charges: Student fight led to gunfire, killing outside Richfield school
Hennepin County prosecutors on Friday charged two young men in connection with a fatal shooting outside a Richfield school. Alfredo Rosario Solis, 19, and 18-year-old Fernando Valdez-Alvarez are each charged with murder and attempted murder.
Authorities say the two Minneapolis teens were involved in a fight with three fellow students outside South Education Center around noon Tuesday.
According to the criminal complaints, a 17-year-old boy punched Rosario Solis before Valdez-Alvarez opened fire. Jahmari Rice, 15, was killed. The 17-year-old was wounded and remains in critical condition. Another teen suffered minor injuries.
Rosario Solis and Valdez-Alvarez are being held in the Hennepin County Jail. Police allegedly recovered a 9 mm Glock handgun after executing a search warrant at Solis' home.
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The students knew each other and the shooting was not random, Jay Henthorne, Richfield’s police chief, said Tuesday, describing it as an altercation that spilled outside the school and ended in the shooting.
He didn’t detail the nature of the dispute. The charges made public Friday also did not say what led to the fight.
The shooting has devastated the school, said Sandy Lewandowski, superintendent of District 287, a regional school district in the Twin Cities for children with specialized educational needs or other challenges that includes South Education Center.
“Our students and our families are hurting,” she said earlier in the week. “Our staff are hurting. The trauma they experienced will be with them the rest of their lives.”