Last Thursday night, four teens rolled up to the parking lot of an Ohio school started by NBA star LeBron James’s foundation and fired a toy water gun at a group playing basketball there. A fight ensued.

By the time police arrived, everyone had scattered, except for 17-year-old Ethan Liming, who was lying dead in the parking lot of the I Promise School.

Police in Akron, Ohio, are investigating what they say was a deadly beating.

“Ethan Liming lost his life in a senseless act of violence,” Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett said at a news conference Wednesday, adding that Liming “did not deserve to die.”

Mylett declined to name suspects but noted that investigators have “viable leads into the individuals that may have been involved” in the crime.

Liming had just finished his junior year at Firestone Community Learning Center, a public school in Akron, where he played baseball and football and was a member of the school’s academy of design, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

“Ethan was everything. He was a good boy. He was a smart boy. He loved life. He loved living life. He wanted to be friends with everybody,” Liming’s mother, Jennifer, told WEWS, adding: “I just miss him so much. And I just wish he was here.”

At the time of the altercation, I Promise School was closed for the summer, with its last class held on May 25, the Beacon reported. The school was founded in 2018 as a partnership between the LeBron James Family Foundation and Akron Public Schools, providing a “STEM-focused and trauma-informed curriculum.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/09/beating-death-akron-lebron-school/