'I'm Going To Die': Families Recall Deadly VA Graduation Shooting

RICHMOND, VA — Jackie Johnson and her family were taking pictures and celebrating her granddaughter's graduation when shots rang out outside the Altria Theater in Richmond on Tuesday.

In an interview with WRIC, Johnson said she immediately went into survival mode as bullets struck several people around her. Her son tried to shield her from the gunfire, she told WRIC, but he was shot in the leg.

"My head was bleeding really bad, and I was just going everywhere. I was so scared," Johnson told the station. "'I'm going to die.' I was thinking we were going to die."

• RELATED: Shooter ID'd After Father, Son Killed Outside VA Graduation Ceremony

A 19-year-old man is charged in the shooting outside Huguenot High School's graduation ceremony that left a father and son dead and injured several others. Amari Pollard was arraigned Wednesday morning on two counts of second-degree murder.

According to authorities, five other people were injured in the shooting, which occurred shortly after 5 p.m. Shawn Jackson, 18, and Lorenzo Smith, 36, were killed in the shooting, police said Wednesday.

Richmond Interim Police Chief Rick Edwards said Pollard knew Jackson and the two had been involved in a dispute for over a year. Edwards said the nature of the dispute is still being investigated.

Tameeka Jackson-Smith, Jackson's mother and Smith's wife, said her family had watched the graduation, then got separated in a large crowd after they walked outside. "(Shawn) was so happy — oh my God — because he got to graduate. He worked hard," Jackson-Smith said.

She said she was walking toward her husband and son in a nearby park to reunite when she saw a man run up behind them and start shooting.

"I don't know if he was shooting at everybody because so many people got shot all over in the area. There were like seven people on the ground," she said.

Johnson told WRIC a fight broke out before the shooting.

"And next thing you know, the young man was walking away and all of a sudden…somebody started shooting. And the other guy, he fell over," Johnson said.

At a family news conference Wednesday, people hugged each other tight as they talked about Jackson and Smith, according to NBC 12.

Datrell Glover, Jackson's aunt and Smith's sister-in-law, said Jackson had a smile that would light up a room and Smith "would do anything for you," NBC 12 reported. She also said Smith was an Army veteran and described him as a hard worker who loved his family.

"I can't see my nephew pop up in the house no more and him coming in smiling," said Glover with tears in her eyes. "Continue to please pray for my family and the others that were injured. This was very senseless."