HAMILTON, Ohio — The shooting that killed 18-year-old Londale Harvey Saturday afternoon happened fewer than 20 feet from the home of a middle school classmate.
T.C. Wagner had never been close to Harvey during their time at Garfield Middle School, he said Monday night, but remembered a smart, talented pre-teen with a special love of music.
“He was just too young,” Wagner said. “He had his whole life ahead of him. I knew he was a bright kid — he focused on rap and everything. I was like, ‘He’s going to make it somewhere with rap.’”
The bullets that killed Harvey came from a car driving by Pleasant and Fairview avenues, according to frantic 911 calls. One bullet punched a hole in the white-paneled siding of a nearby building; others hit him full-on.
“We need an ambulance right now,” one caller said. “Somebody got killed. My dude is bleeding out. … I kept going because I didn’t want to get shot myself.”
First responders took Harvey to a hospital, where he died.
People who work near the scene said Tuesday they were worried by the increasing frequency of shootings in their community.
“It gets worse and worse," Minnick's Drive-Through manager Andrea Asbury said. "It seems weekly, now, this past year. I'm afraid that my daughter's going to walk outside and get shot.”
Wagner, who was visiting his father when friends began to call him about Harvey, couldn’t decide whether he wished he had been home or not.
On one hand: “If I was here, that could’ve happened to me.”
On the other: “I could’ve done something to help him out. Tell him it was coming.”
