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Mar 28, 2008 6:41 pm US/Central
North Texas High School Student Killed In Austin
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ―
According to police, a 17-year-old student at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas was killed early Friday morning in Austin. He and the school band were on a field trip at the time.
The student has been identified as James Kings. He was a talented percussionist and a part of the Latin Jazz Ensemble in the school band. On Thursday, he performed in the State Capital rotunda. According to a PTA member at the Dallas school, Kings had been awarded a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.
But somehow, at about 2:30 a.m. Friday, the body of Kings was found along I-35 in Austin, apparently the victim of a hit-and-run car accident.
"I just found out this morning," said Marilis Lima, a parent at the Dallas school. "Everybody was very sad with what happened because it was someone they really loved, and he was a very nice young man."
Nobody knows how Kings got onto the highway, but officials with the Dallas Independent School District confirmed that the band was staying at a nearby hotel with the correct number of teachers and chaperones.
Administrators with the school district are working closely with police in Austin.
"Trips like this usually have a curfew," said DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. "We're still in the very early stages of determining what all happened there. All the paperwork regarding the field trip had been properly filed."
Still, parent Sabrina Mucullough finds this mystery to be disturbing. "How could this happen? How was a teenager left on the side of the road? How did he end up on the side of the road? That's the shocking part," she said.
School counselors were on hand Friday to work with grief-stricken kids.
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