12-Year-Old Killed In Providence Lived In NK Last Year

The 12-year-old girl killed at a graduation party in Providence Saturday night used to live in North Kingstown, attending Quidnessett Elementary School last year and the year before.

Aynis Vargas was shot and killed Saturday night while attending a graduation party at a house on 256 Hartford Ave. in Providence. She had moved with her family to Cranston last year, where she was a sixth grader at Garden City Elementary School.

"We are devastated by this tragic news. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family," said North Kingstown Supt. Phil Auger Wednesday. "Aynis and her brother attended Quidnessett last year." 

According to the Providence Journal, Aynis was an honor student who loved to read and write.  

The Journal reported: 

They’d been outside for hours in Hartford Park on a cool summer Saturday night, a gathering of families and friends celebrating a young friend’s high school graduation.

It was nearly midnight when Leo Vargas saw a young man walking over from the street toward the apartments in the public housing project at 256 Hartford Ave. He wore a black shirt, camouflage pants and a mask over his face. It took a moment for Vargas to realize the stranger was gripping a handgun.

The masked man calmly pointed the gun at the group and opened fire. Twelve-year-old Aynis Vargas, rising to talk to her mother, fell as a bullet struck her neck. The man shot a woman in the stomach and just missed a 4-year-old girl standing behind her. He kept firing, hitting two other women, as people screamed and scrambled to flee.

Why the gunman targeted the group is not known. He disappeared into the night after the deadly shooting of Aynis and wounding of three others.