Steve Burns
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) After a violent week in and around Prince George’s County Schools, the county’s State’s Attorney is urging adults to put more emphasis on teaching children interpersonal skills.

Angela Alsobrooks, who is also running for Prince George’s County Executive, made the remarks at a press conference Tuesday to discuss the recent spate of violence that saw a shooting in the Oxon Hill High School parking lot and a gang-related stabbing outside Parkdale High School.

“Our children, quite simply, do not have conflict resolution skills,” Alsobrooks said. “We’re finding that they have absolutely no coping skills whatsoever.”

Two teenagers were arrested in the Oxon Hill case, and Alsobrooks said police are still searching for a third suspect. Zanaya Bryant, 17 and Anthony Hollingsworth, 18, both from Clinton, Md. were charged with robbery and attempted murder. They are both being charged as adults.

“We believe that the act of taking a gun and shooting a person in the chest is an adult act,” Alsobrooks said.

The victim in the case had a romantic history with Bryant, Alsobrooks said, and was invited inside a car in the school’s parking lot before he was shot. He is expected to recover from his injuries.

Alsobrooks confirmed the stabbing Tuesday near Parkdale High School had ties to the MS-13 gang. Police said “several” suspects were taken into custody, believed to have gang affiliations. The victim was a 16-year-old Parkdale student who was found by police staggering out of the woods, they said.

The two cases “cry out” for more mental health and human resource support, Alsobrooks said.

“We have to work much harder to make sure our children have the skills that they need to cope with each other, to resolve conflict non-violently,” she said. “Kids, who spend all their time on social media and all these electronic devices, and what it essentially means is they lack the ability to talk face-to-face with each other and resolve conflict.”

Copyright 2018 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Prince George’s County Police)