Arrest Made In Childs Park Shooting

ST PETERSBURG, FL -- Brian Graver makes a few bucks each week cooking food for workers in the Childs Park neighborhood. His grill is hot and sometimes too are tempers at nearby Childs Park. Some kids go there looking for trouble.

"With summertime coming up, it ain't looking no better," says Graver.

On Tuesday night at about 8:45, a fight from the neighborhood carried over into the parking lot at the Childs Park Recreation Center. Someone pulled a gun and 16-year-old Jawaun Holloway was shot.

"When I heard he had got shot, I was like, 'Oh my God, is this really happening? Why would they want to shoot Jawuan?'" says 19-year-old Sakia Cooper, a friend from the neighborhood.

Holloway is at Bayfront Medical Center and he's expected to recover. Police say he was an innocent victim in the shooting who was trying to get away when the gunfire started.

On Wednesday afternoon, police arrested 19-year-old Rayni Adams. He's been charged with aggravated assault, but more serious charges are possible. Police say Adams was seen firing a gun at the rec center, but right now it's not known if Adams' bullets hit Holloway. The investigation is ongoing.

Tuesday's gunfire comes on the heels of the fatal shooting of Paris Whitehead-Hamilton. The 8-year-old's death spawned community outrage.

St. Petersburg Councilman Wengay Newton says there are simply too many guns in the hands of kids. "Now you got kids out there using permanent solutions for temporary problems," says Newton, who went to shooting scene Tuesday night.

At the very time of the shooting, other community leaders were planning a "Stop the Violence" march for Saturday. NAACP officer Trenia Byrd Cox admits it will take much more than marches to curb the problem that turned a supposedly safe rec center into a danger zone.

"What it says to us is that we can no longer ignore this tragedy," says Byrd Cox.

The NAACP is calling on parents, police, schools and others in the community to help solve the problem of gun violence in St. Petersburg.

Saturday's anti-violence march starts at 10 a.m. at Bartlett Park, 600 18^th Avenue South.