Court documents detail scene in Monday’s Des Moines outreach center shooting

(ABC 6 News) – Court documents detail the scene inside Starts Right Here, a Des Moines outreach center for at-risk youth, where a shooting took place on Monday, killing two students and injuring the center’s President.

Police say 18-year-old Preston Walls brought a gun to the education center Monday afternoon and began firing in the common area killing 18-year-old Gionni Dameron and 16-year-old Rashad Carr and injuring Will Keeps.

Court documents say that Keeps “approached the defendant and attempted to escort him out of a door at which point the defendant abruptly pulled away, and produced the handgun.”

Walls proceeded to shoot all three victims before fleeing the scene, the documents say.

Police followed a “suspicious vehicle” from the scene. They then conducted a traffic stop and Walls allegedly ran from the vehicle. Police discovered Walls had cut off his court-ordered GPS ankle monitor which is related to previous cases. He was located quickly, and a handgun was found nearby, according to police.

Walls is being charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and criminal gang participation.

He is being held at the Polk County Jail on a total cash-only bond of over $2.5 million.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 3.

Starts Right Here (SRH) is a program that provides Des Moines students a safe space to complete their self-paced learning or credit recovery programs. This includes mentoring, tutoring and various arts programs meant to offer guidance for students working through personal, educational and systemic hurdles. 

SRH is not a state-approved charter school, but has paired with Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) since 2021 to accomplish two main goals, according to DMPS: assist students in the district’s Options Academy credit recovery program and help students no longer in a school building due to behavioral issues.