EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the reason Wells was at the hotel the night he was shot: He went with his sister to visit her friends there, not to get her from the room. (Find a more-complete description of the events that night here.)
HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — Zeeland East High School’s homecoming dance was marred when a teen boy punched a girl in the face –allegedly because she has been ordered to testify in the upcoming murder trial, according to police.
The girl was assaulted at about 8:45 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019, at the Haworth Inn and Conferene Center, according the Holland Department of Public Safety Capt. Keith Mulder.
Students nearby quickly separated the two, he said, and the girl was not injured to the point of needing hospitalization.
An Ottawa County Sheriff’s deputy, who is also Zeeland East’s school-resource officer, was on duty at the dance, Mulder said. He called on Holland police for assistance, because the hotel is in the city’s jurisdiction.
“Both the victim and the suspect of the assault are juveniles,” Mulder told WHTC in an email. “The assault is reported to be because the victim is testifying at the upcoming trial involving TJ Wells, and the suspect of the assault recognized her and went up and punched her in the face.”
Holland resident Troy “T.J.” Wells Jr. 14, was shot dead on Feb. 16, 2019, at the Hampton Inn in Holland Township, in what authorities believe was a gang-related incident. At least two of the hotel rooms had been rented for teens; a roomful of teenage girls were having a sleepover the night before a school dance.
Wells had gone with his older sister to visit her friends there. The shooting happened as he went down the hall to leave the hotel, and had a confrontation with teens from another room. Holland resident Juan Sandro Cabrera was arrested in the Upper Peninsula amost two weeks later and charged in the shooting and for gang-related activities. Three others have been charged in connection to the case.
Saturday’s assault suspect, who is not being named pending charges, is not currently in custody, Mulder said, because he “was turned over to a parent that night.”
