MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- It was like a horror show on television.
Stunned residents in Mount Morris Township grappled Tuesday with the realization that a 6-year-old boy, one of their own, had shot another first-grader to death. Kayla Rolland, also 6, died a half-hour after the shooting at Buell Elementary School."This is absolutely horrifying," Wanda Brauner said as she loaded her 3-year-old in a cart at Kmart. "It makes me so scared to send her to school."
"This never seems quite so real on TV," said Earl Clinton, who was tending to his yard. "It always seems so far away from us in Michigan. I can't believe it could happen here at an elementary school of all places."
Mount Morris Township has neat neighborhoods with small family homes, rundown areas with stores that have barred windows and affluent condominiums. There is rural farmland.
"I moved out here because I'd thought it'd be safer for my grandkids," said Katherine Sutton, who has lived in the area for five years. "I thought things would be better, but I see it's not."
The township of about 25,000 people is a 321/2-square-mile community adjacent to Flint's north side. Flint is a gritty industrial city of 132,000 that was the birthplace of General Motors Corp.
The Beecher Community School District covering Buell Elementary has more than half its students living in poverty, according to federal estimates. The school itself has 500 pupils.
"This community has its problems, but this is something else," said salesman John Williams as he pumped gas at Fleck's Mart. "People are truly grieving for that poor little girl."
Debra Jones, who said she is a friend of Kayla's parents, went to the family's home after learning of the shooting.
"She smiled all the time. she was just a sweet, sweet little girl," Jones said, tears rolling down her cheeks. She said Kayla loved the TV character Barney.
Jana Nicks, 6, said she and Kayla were friends and liked to play duck-duck-goose and freeze tag in recess. "She was real nice and laughed a lot," said Jana, who was in a separate first-grade class.
Classes today were canceled, but the school will be open for anyone in the community who wants counseling. Flowers and stuffed animals were left at the front door of the school. A sign over the door reads: "We (love) our children and we care for their safety."
Like many, resident Dee Dee Coates wondered how the 6-year-old had obtained a gun. Township supervisor Larry Foster and others said many people in the community own guns, but no more than in other parts of the country.
"We're very saddened by what happened here," Foster said. "It's going to be an everlasting scar, but I think you will find the community will come together in this time of crisis."
Terry Ivey, an unemployed father of three, said gun owners have to be more responsible for preventing violence.
"What kind of parent doesn't lock up their guns away from their babies?" he asked. "This will never stop if folks don't treat guns like the serious killing weapons they can be."
Ivey's wife, Angela, said she was praying for the families of the two children.
"I can't imagine how they must be feeling to know their little boy took somebody else's life," she said. "I can't imagine which family is feeling worse."