Editor's Note: Previous reports incorrectly stated that Milby was a former or expelled student. The Dixon High School superintendent has confirmed to WQAD that Milby was scheduled to graduate with the 2018 senior class.
DIXON, Illinois -- Neighbors of Matthew Milby, the 19-year-old Dixon High School student who opened fire on May 16th in the gym where his fellow seniors had gathered for graduation practice, say they heard arguments from his home and that police had visited multiple times.
“Always all the time they would always get into arguments or whatever, and we live right there so we could always hear what was going on,” says Jahrod Bell, a Dixon High classmate and neighbor who lives across the street from Milby.
Outside that home, Milby’s mother says her son needs to take the blame.
“There is no justification for what he’s done, and he’ll take full responsibility of that… Well my kid is laying at the hospital shot thank God they didn’t kill him and that’s a blessing thank god he did kill somebody else,” says Julie Milby.
Bell, who is an underclassman at the high school, was inside a different classroom at the time of the shooting.
“At that time, a lot of people in my class were crying. We were putting things in front of our doors and just a lot of panic,” says Bell.
Milby was taken into custody after he was shot in the shoulder.
Class is cancelled for students at Dixon High School on Thursday, May 17, but students will be allowed inside the building between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. to pick up their belongings.