Martinsville - Police arrested a former student in connection with a shooting at Martinsville West Middle School Friday morning that left another student fighting for his life.
A YouTube video shows what classmates say is a fight between the shooting suspect and victim, Chance Jackson. They say the fight took place Wednesday over a girl.
For 26 seconds, the teens are seen punching each other. But police aren't sure the fight is connected to the shooting.
Friends of the suspect tell Eyewitness News the boy is not one of those shown fighting
"We do not have a motive as of yet. We do not know what caused this, what happened, what led up to these events. We are interviewing witnesses right now. Several different agencies have been called in, federal, state and local agencies have been assisting at the scene," said Sgt. Curt Durnil, Indiana State Police.
Detectives are also looking at the suspect's Facebook page, where the suspect posted, "Today is the day" earlier Friday.
Chance Jackson, 15, was critically injured after suffering two gunshot wounds to the abdomen. He is in critical but stable condition after several hours of surgery Friday morning.
Authorities have not identified the suspect. However, the suspect's Facebook page contains several posts which appear to be related to the shooting.
The posts include the statements, "Today is the day" and "Don't use your mind use your nine" - a possible reference to a 9mm handgun.
"Plain and simple, it could have been prevented. If they would have taken the initiative and the messages off of Facebook at the time, this probably would have never happened," said parent Misty Owens.
"I was shocked. Very shocked," said Tonya Haltum, whose son was friends with the suspect.
Haltum told Eyewitness News the suspect was a troubled, but good, kid.
"The kids horse around and stuff, but never, never talked anything about guns or hurting anybody in this manner at all," Haltum said.
Friday morning, police say that all changed with violence and terror at school.
"This has always kind of been a fear in the back of a parent's head is when you hear about these school shootings and for it to be in Martinsville is a little too close to home," said parent Melissa Payne.
Authorities could not confirm what kind of weapon was used in the shooting.
Speaking at a news conference Friday afternoon, Sgt. Durnil said the shooter was arrested at around 8:00 am - about an hour after the shooting occurred.
"If there's any information out there that we should be made aware of, or any type of social media outlet that we should be made aware of, that we should look at, we would like to know about that," said Durnil.
The Facebook posts include a reference to drug use: "It'd prolly help if every night I didn't get wasted high enough to be a passenger aboard a space ship" and the Black Panthers.
Police spent hours searching for the weapon, which they eventually found.
Chance Jackson
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