Preston Walls is a teenager from Des Moines Iowa who is charged with the murders of two teens at an alternative educational program for at-risk youth. According to police reports Preston Walls who was on pre trial detention would cut off his ankle bracelet and head into Starts Right Here program building where he would shoot and kill an eighteen and sixteen year old boy. Preston Walls would be arrested and now faces two counts of murder along other offences.. The Starts Right Here program is run by William Holmes a local rapper who goes by the name Will Keeps who was also injured in the attack.
Preston Walls More News
An 18-year-old man was charged with murder in Monday’s killing of two teenagers at an alternative educational program for at-risk youth in Des Moines.
Police said Preston Walls of Des Moines is charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in the Monday shooting at Starts Right Here. Two teenagers — an 18-year-old male and a 16-year-old male — were killed in the attack.
The program’s founder, 49-year-old William Holmes — a rapper who goes by the stage name Will Keeps — was injured.
Police said Walls was on supervised pre-trial release on a weapons charge and had removed an ankle bracelet 16 minutes before he went to the school with a gun and confronted the two student victims. Police said Walls and the two students all had gang affiliations and were in opposing gangs.
Preston Walls Other News
Two teenage students were killed Monday and a man was seriously injured in what police said was a targeted shooting at an alternative educational program that was designed to keep at-risk youth away from trouble, police said. The injured man was identified as the program’s founder — a rapper who left a life of violence and was dedicated to helping youth in Des Moines.
Three people were arrested shortly after the shooting at the educational program called Starts Right Here, police said. Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie identified the injured adult as William Holmes — who goes by the stage name Will Keeps — and said the victims and those arrested were all teenagers.
“That brings a total of five families of teenagers affected by youth gun violence in a matter of minutes on a Monday afternoon, right here in our capital city,” Cownie said. “This is a growing and alarming phenomenon in our country, and one we’ve seen too often in the past and again today in the city of Des Moines.”
Cownie held a moment of silence for the victims. He said he spoke to their family members. “But there is little one can say that will lessen their pain. Nothing that can be said to bring them back, those who were killed so senselessly.”
Starts Right Here is an educational program affiliated with the Des Moines school district. Police said emergency crews were called to the school, which is in a business park, just before 1 p.m. Officers arrived to find two students critically injured, and they started CPR immediately. The two students died at a hospital. The adult, later identified by the mayor as Keeps, was in serious condition, and police said he was in surgery Monday evening