‘You won’t see your first day as a senior’: Maryland high school student shot and killed while swimming with stepfather and uncle on vacation in Puerto Rico
- Tommy Grays III, 17, was fatally shot on the beach during a family trip to Puerto Rico earlier this month.
- The shooting was reportedly the result of a previous argument between Grays’ family members and a local man.
- Grays is the third tourist to be fatally shot in Puerto Rico in the last two months
A Maryland teenager was shot and killed while swimming with his family on vacation at a Puerto Rico beach as his father lamented the fact that he “won’t see his first day as a senior.”
Seventeen-year-old Tommy Grays III was shot dead on July 1 on an Isla Verde beach in what local police call a “targeted shooting” that took place after a disagreement.
The alleged gunman, Carlos Aníbal Rosado Martínez, 23, turned himself in Friday and faces murder and attempted murder charges.
The shooting also injured the teen’s stepfather and uncle. It’s still unclear what sparked the argument that would turn deadly on the beach.
Tommy Grays III, 17, was fatally shot on the beach during a family vacation in Puerto Rico on July 1.
The suspect, Carlos Aníbal Rosado Martínez, 23, turned himself in Friday and faces charges of murder and attempted murder.
Grays’ father, also named Tommy Grays, spoke to a local NBC affiliate and said his son had been working to prevent the fight from escalating before he was killed.
‘My son had actually prevented the situation from happening. He then walked back to the beach and was in the water with his stepfather when the guy came running back and was shooting at them. saying.
The devastated father said that any account to the contrary, in which his son was portrayed as the assailant, was categorically false.
‘My son was an innocent child without a single violent bone in his body. He had never been in a physical fight a day in his life and he lost his life and it is said that he was being violent. It doesn’t make sense,’ he said.
The teen would have been in the 12th grade at James Hubert Blake High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, at the start of the term.
‘I was so excited about it. And he won’t see his first day as a senior,’ said his father.
Shanay Snead, the high school’s principal, said that although Grays was “fairly new to the school community, he had developed strong relationships with many students and staff in such a short period of time.”
“Her smile was contagious,” Snead added.
He added that efforts to protect the island’s tourism industry have prompted locals to blame island guests for the deadly encounters.
“What happens is that it has been misrepresented as if the tourist was the aggressor of the situation, and it was not like that at all,” he said.
The victim’s father said his son had tried to defuse the fight that led to the shooting and is being portrayed as an attacker by locals to save the island’s tourism industry.
Martinez reportedly followed the Grays’ group to the beach after a nasty interaction and shot them.
The shooting, which took place on the beach, also injured Grays’ uncle and stepfather.
Grays was a rising senior at Blake High School in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Tommy’s father has flown to the island to get answers and to try to bring his son’s body home.
Grays was the third tourist killed in Puerto Rico in the last two months.
In May, two New York University students were killed outside a nightclub in Puerto Rico by a 31-year-old woman who fired her gun outside the venue after being thrown out.
The shots hit two Peruvian citizens, Franco Medina, 29, and Sergio Palomino, 28, both master’s students in business administration.
The shooter, Marangelys Claudio, was later charged with illegal possession of a firearm and opening fire in a public area, among other charges.
