A geometry teacher at Wilmer-Hutchins High School narrowly escaped serious injury when a bullet pierced her glasses during a shooting on April 15, according to police documents and the teacher’s own account.
The incident, which left four students injured, has heightened concerns about school safety in the Dallas Independent School District.
The teacher, Columbia Renix, was grazed by a bullet that passed through a wall and struck her glasses, blowing the frames off her face and narrowly missing her eye. Renix, who had returned to teaching half a year earlier after giving birth to her first child, was cleaning her breast pump in a room when the shooting occurred.
“We take it day-by-day to heal,” she wrote on a GoFundMe page, noting that the incident affected more than her vision.
According to an arrest affidavit, 17-year-old Tracy Denard Haynes Jr. entered the school through an unsecured door opened by another student. Security footage captured Haynes moving through a hallway, firing a .40-caliber handgun with an extended clip at four male students.
Haynes fled the scene, securing a ride to Red Oak from an unsuspecting bystander, Milton Nieto, before turning himself in at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center around 9 p.m. that evening.
The shooting injured four students, who were all hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Two were released by April 16, while the other two remained under observation. Renix was treated at the scene and released, according to a Dallas ISD affidavit.
This marks the second shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in just over a year, amplifying fears among students and parents.