COLUMBIA, Md. — At a time when many high school students may be getting ready for their yearbook pictures, images of 16-year-old Michael Robertson and 15-year-old Blake McCray are now featured on GoFundMe accounts to help their families pay for their funerals.
“It is difficult to conceive of a more tragic situation than the senseless death of a child,” Howard County Schools Superintendent William J. Barnes told us last week, “I grieve alongside each of you as we try to understand why Michael Robertson and Blake McCray, two of our students, were victims of a senseless crime.”
Robertson died during the shooting outside the Mall in Columbia on February 22nd, while McCray clung to life for five days before losing his battle.
McCray was a ninth-grade student at Oakland Mills High School and following his death, his parents gave the school permission to inform his classmates.
It was especially difficult, since students, teachers and staff had all been pulling for him for days to recover from his gunshot wound to the head.
Questions have lingered surrounding their alleged killer, 18-year-old Emmetson Zeah, who was supposed to be on home detention with an ankle monitor for allegedly trying to stab a classmate three months earlier.
Second teen succumbs to injuries from Columbia Mall shooting
“The county does not have a role in home detention or monitoring people who are on home detention,” said Sherry Llewellyn of the Howard County Police Department.
But many now question how Zeah, a Howard County student like his victims, gained his release from custody on those other charges only to commit more serious crimes with deadly force.
