Lafayette High School is grieving the loss of a student killed in a car crash over the weekend.

Darius Harris, a senior at Lafayette, was killed in the crash early Sunday morning on I-229. Evan Steele, also a senior at Lafayette, was transported to the hospital after the crash and was in critical condition. According to Lafayette Principal Chris Early, as of Monday afternoon, Steele was in the Intensive Care Unit on life support.

Early said staff at Lafayette are doing everything they can to take care of students.

“The staff here really is a family… our teachers are just absolutely exceptional, not just our teachers for that matter, all of staff members – secretaries, counselors, teachers – are exceptional at understanding what our students need and kind of reading the mood of our building,” Early said. “First period was kind of quiet when the bell first rang and then you could just slowly see a trickle of kids heading to the counseling center… and that’s what we’ve done all morning long, we’ve just had our counseling center open and kids have been able to come in as needed and visit with people and, I think, in that sense, things are going as smoothly as one could expect.”

Early said this is the second car accident in about a year that has taken the life of a student.

Early said, through it all, he’s appreciative of the Northside community.

“We’ve had a lot of people reaching out to us (Monday). There’s been a lot of food delivered, we had a local church bring in Kleenexes and waters and it’s just nice to know that we have such a tight-knit community that has our back and will support us when we need it,” Early said.

There is no information yet on the cause of the crash, but police say speed was a contributing factor.