BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — UPDATE: Antonio King has been charged with murder, first degree assault, and second degree assault. He is being held on $100,000 bond for each count. Jason Wade has been charged with murder, first degree assault, and second degree assault. He is being held on $100,000 bond for murder, $30,000 bond for first degree assault, and a $20,000 bond for second degree assault.
ORIGINAL: We now know the names of the two teenagers accused of killing a 14-year-old girl and wounding two others in a shooting Friday night at a park on Washington Avenue.
Birmingham police say Kierra’Onna Rice and the other girls were shot during a fight with other girls that had been arranged on Facebook.
Rice’s grandmother tells WIAT 42 that the high school freshman had been bullied for years and thought she needed to stand up for herself one last time.
The Fairfield High Preparatory School student was constantly getting her hair done and doing other people’s hair.
Rice, or Keke as her family called her, used that as an excuse of why she left her younger sister with her grandfather and went to a park to confront some girls she’d been feuding with on Facebook, according to her grandmother.
“I used to always tell her, ‘You’re my pretty girl, my pretty girl. That’s why they are picking on you and people like you, Keke. You know?’ I miss her so much,” said Marilyn Rice.
Birmingham police say two teenagers shot into a group of people where the girls had assembled to fight. Two were injured and Keke was reportedly struck in the heart.
According to police, 17-year-old Antonio King and 19-year-old Jason Wade are now charged with murder, second-degree assault and first-degree assault.
Marilyn Rice says her granddaughter thought if she showed up it would put an end to the harassment, but it put an end to everything.
She says Keke had been jumped walking home from school two years ago and more recently had been targeted on Facebook.
Marilyn Rice says Keke told her grandmother that she felt she had no choice but to show up even though the family told her not to.
“But she wanted to do it for the last time. And they took my baby’s life away. They took my baby,” said Rice.
With the loss of two 14 year olds in Birmingham to gun violence in less than a month, Birmingham City Council member Jay Roberson says the situation is out of control.
“There are teenage young men that are shooting into a crowd of young ladies that are fighting over social media. And it’s just crazy that this has happened. I mean I’ve been hurt since I heard about it, since I got the phone call, and right now my prayers are with that family,” said Roberson.
“I’m missing her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t. It’s sad. It’s so sad,” said Marilyn Rice.
Antonio King and Jason Wade are in the Jefferson County Jail. Their bonds total $3 million.
Birmingham police say it’s the first time they’ve heard of a fight being planned on Facebook.
Investigators say the girls planned to record the fight and upload it online.
“The reality is, the planned fight didn’t go as planned and someone lost their life,” said Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards. “It’s just really time for an alarm to go off in the minds of every parent, in the mind of every adult.”
Two other girls were shot, but survived the incident, according to police.
Copyright 2015 WIAT 42 News
