Dallas, Texas Wilmer-Hutchins school shooting suspect indicted

DALLAS — Tracy Haynes Jr., the teenager accused in a shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas last month, has been indicted on five charges, according to court documents.

A Dallas County grand jury indicted Haynes Jr., 17, on Tuesday on five charges of aggravated assault mass shooting, a first-degree felony.

Four students and a teacher were injured but survived the shooting, which happened shortly after 1 p.m. on April 13 at Wilmer-Hutchins in Southeast Dallas.

The affidavit said at 1:03 p.m., an “unidentified student” let Haynes Jr. into the school through an unsecured door. Haynes Jr. then walked a hallway until he saw multiple male students, according to the affidavit. Haynes Jr. “displayed a firearm and began firing at the students indiscriminately,” striking several of them, the affidavit said.

Haynes Jr. then approached a student “who was not able to run,” the affidavit said, “and appeared to take a point-blank shot at the student.”

Haynes Jr. later turned himself in to authorities later the same day.

The shooting prompted mass evacuations of the campus and a heavy police response as officials investigated the incident. The campus was secured after about an hour, and then parents were allowed to reunite with their children, who had been evacuated to the school’s nearby football stadium. 

Haynes was charged with a relatively new charge, aggravated assault mass shooting. The charge was introduced in 2023, when Texas lawmakers passed it into law. House Bill 165, which was passed by a vote of 143-0 in the Texas House and 30-1 in the Texas Senate, amended the Texas Penal Code to allow multiple offenses of aggravated assault stemming from the same shooting incident to be covered in one charge. 

Under the law, the mass shooting charge is a first-degree felony punishable by 5-99 years in prison, or life. 

When a case goes to trial, the mass shooting charge can prevent the multiple offenses of aggravated assault from being tried separately. Also, the law also provides the possibility that sentences for multiple aggravated assault offenses stemming from the same incident must be served consecutively, as opposed to concurrently.