Student Killed in Shooting at Tenn. School

A student fatally shot a 15-year-old classmate Thursday at a high school, police said, as other teenagers watched in horror as the victim clutched his chest and fell to the floor.

Police identified the victim as Ryan McDonald, a sophomore who lived with his grandmother and had alopecia, a condition that left him bald since he was 3 and the target of endless teasing as a child.

"He tried to have a tough exterior, like a shield, to fit in," his uncle Roger McDonald said. "He was a good kid ... who was dealt some bad cards in life."

The shooting happened shortly after 8 a.m. at the Central High School cafeteria, Deputy Chief Bill Roehl said, and the suspected shooter was taken into custody six minutes later on a nearby street. The suspect and victim knew each other, Knox County School System Superintendent Jim McIntyre said.

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Jamar Siler, 15, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and was being held in a juvenile detention facility, police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said. Siler had an initial appearance in Juvenile Court late Thursday and was being held without bond. His lawyer, public defender Mark Stephens, refused to discuss the case.

"This wasn't a shooting that was a random act," Roehl said. "It was an individual directing his aggression toward another individual, not the school or the students inside the school."

At a news conference late Thursday, McIntyre said the school will reopen Friday, though more for counseling than for classes.

"I want to assure parents and others in this community that despite this tragic ... and isolated incident that our schools are safe," the superintendent of the 52,000-student system said. Those not attending would get an excused absence.

Nearly 200 people attended a candlelight vigil for McDonald outside his grandmother's modest home in the blue-collar Lonsdale community Thursday evening. They wrote condolences on cardboard signs attached to the chain-link fence in front of the house and sang "Amazing Grace" in the street.