Reporting from San Diego -- Two teenagers were fatally shot early this morning during a confrontation between street-gang members and partygoers in the Valencia Park neighborhood here, police said.
Monique Palmer, 17, and Michael Taylor, 15, were at a party when gang members attempted to crash the event, San Diego Police Lt. Kevin Rooney said.
The gang members displayed handguns and yelled gang challenges, Rooney said, before leaving. Shortly after midnight, Palmer, Taylor and several other partygoers were walking on the street when two young men confronted the group and began shooting, Rooney said.
Palmer was declared dead at the scene; Taylor died at a trauma center at 1:36 a.m.
SAN DIEGO (CNS) -- The 17-year-old San Diego girl gunned down by apparent gang members served as a chapter president for a national program geared against student violence.
Monique Palmer, a senior at Lincoln High School, died on the Valencia Park corner where she was shot after leaving a party near North Jacinto Drive with walking distance of Imperial Avenue Saturday, shortly before 12:55 a.m., The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Her friend, Michael Taylor, a 15-year-old freshman at Point Loma High School, died at an area hospital, the newspaper reported.
Palmer, who served as a chapter president of Students Against Violence Everywhere, had recently learned that she had been accepted to California State Los Angeles. She was also a member of her school's step dance team ,and class secretary of the student council last year.
"She showed people that even though you're at Lincoln, where everyone stereotypes you, you can still go to parties and still get good grades and go to college," Palmer's friend, Helena McAllister, 17, told the Union-Tribune.
Palmer and Taylor, a rising football star on his school's varsity team, had been at a party attended by Lincoln High students when three vehicles filled with possible gang members showed up. The party crashers pointed handguns at the guests and yelled gang challenges before driving away, according to police.
Several minutes later, Palmer and Taylor left the party with a group of people, the Union-Tribune reported. At the corner of San Jacinto and Groveland drives, two men walked up and fired shots.
"Other people ran, but I guess she didn't have a chance to run," Palmer's friend Janelle Bennett, 17, who was also at the party, told the newspaper. "It's just hard to believe she's gone."
Police have not released a description of the shooters. Last night, the Union-Tribune reported, dozens of people gathered at the site of the shooting to honor Palmer and Taylor. Attendees lighted candles and placed them at the curb along with balloons, flowers and signs expressing their love and loss.
Officials at both Lincoln High and Point Loma High said crisis counselors would be on had this week to help students and staff deal with the deaths.
San Diego Police asked anyone with information about the shootings to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or leave an anonymous tip with San Diego County Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.