Joppatowne High School Principal Melissa Williams testified in Harford Circuit Court Thursday morning at the trial of Jaylen Prince, 16, of Edgewood, who is charged with first-degree murder in the September killing of 15-year-old Warren Grant inside the high school.

On Sept. 6, the day Grant was shot inside a bathroom at the school, Williams said she was on the phone in her office when she noticed a group of students running out of the building.

She called the sight “highly unusual” and said she followed them “to see what they were running to, but something told me they were running from something.”

She went to the B wing of the school and saw five or six students carrying an unresponsive Grant. A student lifted the boy’s shirt and she “saw blood.”

“Someone in the course of me asking if it was a knife or a gun wound said he was shot,” Williams said.

Williams said she called the school nurse, as well as 911, and ordered the building locked down.

About one hour earlier, around 11:30 a.m., Williams said Prince was in her office and she had advised him to meet with an assistant principal to get a locker so he could put his backpack in it. He declined.

Williams testified that school surveillance footage showed Prince leaving a school restroom “putting something back into his backpack” following the shooting.

Williams said Prince had a history of showing aggression and had referrals for fighting and threats. She said he was involved in a fight in February 2023 during a basketball game and that he was physically trying to get back into the fight after he was restrained and held back by an adult.

Grant was killed just a few days into the 2024-2025 school year.

Williams said that Prince was absent 105.5 days of the previous 180-day school year. Of those absences 23 were either suspensions or excused absences, she said. Prince was late on 18 days and left school early once, Williams said.

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