A high school senior has been identified as the person killed in a mass shooting that also wounded five others when two groups exchanged gunfire inside the food court at a mall in Louisiana’s capital city on Thursday afternoon, according to officials.
Martha Odom, 16, died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a statement issued Friday by the local coroner’s office.
Martha was one of three high school seniors from Ascension Episcopal school caught in the crossfire at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. The school on Friday issued a statement saying Martha’s classmates would remember her as “a joyful presence whose kindness and infectious enthusiasm brought light to all who knew her”.
“Ascension Episcopal School carries this cross together,” the statement said. “We are holding one another close with an immense amount of faith and love.”
The statement said at least five of the school’s students were present at the time of the deadly shootout and caught in the crossfire. Louisiana’s the Advocate newspaper reported that those five students were at the mall for an unofficial “skip day” for senior students at Ascension Episcopal as their graduation looms.
Police on Friday said a 17-year-old suspect named Markel Lee surrendered to investigators on Friday on a count of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of illegally using a weapon. They asked for the public’s help in finding a second suspect who was not immediately identified but was shown in a surveillance image provided to the media.
On Friday, police also said Markel was the only one of the five people initially detained after the shooting who still remained in custody. The others were released pending further investigation into the violence.
Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, issued a statement describing herself as a friend of the Odom family and said Martha’s death was a “devastating loss of innocent life”.
“Martha [had] her whole life in front of her,” Murrill’s statement said. “Those responsible for this senseless violence must face the full force of the law.”
There have been at least 122 mass shootings in the US, including Thursday’s at the Mall of Louisiana, reported so far this year as of Friday, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive, a non-partisan reference resource, defines mass shootings as cases in which four or more victims are wounded or shot.
Gun violence is the US’s leading cause of death for teenagers and younger children, research shows. That fact combined with perennially high rates of mass shootings in the US have prompted calls from many for the federal government to implement more substantial gun control.
But Congress has not heeded those pleas over the years.
Martha’s death was less than a week after another mass shooting in Louisiana left eight children dead in Shreveport. Police called that shooting in Shreveport a “domestic violence incident” carried out by the father of seven of the children. Two adults were also wounded. The shooter died after carjacking a person, according to authorities, though it is unclear if he died by suicide or was fatally shot by police.
One of the wounded adults was the wife of the shooter, with whom he shared four of the killed children, authorities said. The other was a girlfriend of the shooter and the mother of three more of the killed children.
