Posted on 05/03/2012 7:30:57 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
The mother of a 13-year-old boy fatally shot when police say he tried to rob a couple said she is in shock that her son is dead -- and even more so at the circumstances surrounding his death.
"I don't want it put out like he was a bad person or a mean person, because he wasn't," Latonya Walker, 38, said Tuesday. "This is not him, not who he was. Anybody that knew Ja'Quares knows that."
Birmingham police said Ja'Quares Cortez Walker was in a car that pulled into the parking lot of the gated Skyview Condominiums at 407 Skyview Drive shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. The condo is off Robert Jemison Drive in southwest Birmingham.
Wearing a gray shirt around his face like a bandana and armed with a loaded and cocked pistol, authorities said Ja'Quares approached a black Lexus SUV with a couple inside and ordered the driver out. The driver pulled a gun and shot Ja'Quares multiple times.
The driver's name has not been released.
Police officials on Tuesday said the case remains under investigation. Once their probe is complete, they will present their findings to the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office to determine whether charges will be filed.
District Attorney Brandon Falls said he has been told that police will present the case to him no later than Thursday.
Police released no information on the Friday incident until late Monday, until then saying only that an "unclassified shooting death" had occurred.
Police Chief A.C. Roper on Tuesday said police are still investigating.
"We questioned all the people we needed to question in relation to the incident," he said.
Police still are looking for the people who were accompanying Ja'Quares on Friday night, "but no one has been arrested," said Sgt. Johnny Williams Jr., spokesman for the Birmingham Police Department.
The shooter, Williams said, talked to investigators at the scene, and he voluntarily went to the Birmingham Police headquarters.
Latonya Walker said her son, who school officials confirmed was the quarterback on the football team at Martha Gaskins Middle School, was home about 9 p.m. Friday. She said he was visiting with two of his friends and one of his brothers in the front yard of the east Birmingham home where Ja'Quares lived with his parents, two brothers and a sister.
A red Chevrolet Trail Blazer pulled up to the group of young men. Latonya Walker said she yelled out to her son and asked who was in the car. He replied that it was one of his friends and the friend's uncle, and then got in the vehicle with them.
"Mom, we're just going to the store, and we'll be right back," his mother recalled him saying. It wasn't long, she said, before she began to worry. She said she called everyone she could think of, but had no success finding her son. She said he did not have a cellphone.
"It's not like him to go anywhere and not tell me," she said.
After several hours, Latonya Walker said she called Birmingham police and reported her son missing. She said she paced the house throughout the night, and still no word came.
"It was a real rough day," she said. "I knew something wasn't right."
It wasn't until about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, she said, that a Birmingham police detective called her and asked her if she had reported her son missing.
When she said yes, he asked her to meet him and look at a photo of a youth shot to death the previous night.
Police have said they were not able to identify Ja'Quares until Saturday.
Latonya Walker said the account of her son's death doesn't make sense to her. "He got fussed at like all kids do, but he was a real respectful child," she said. "Every day was a happy day for us."
She said she just wants to know the truth.
"Even if he did this, someone had to put him up to it. Why else would 16- and 17-year-olds want to hang out with a 13-year-old boy?" she said. "It's not the way he was raised."
She said her heart is heavy, and she's still not sure everything has hit her yet.
"It's like he's still here, and I feel him holding me up," she said. "All I can do is pray, and know God was ready to take his angel."
this could have been an initiation rite for a gang.
this could have been an initiation rite for a gang.
A work partner got a call from his friend in Alabama the other night. He was all upset because while sitting in his Lexus SUV with his date in her apt. parking lot, a thug pulls his door open, puts a gun to his head and threatens to kill him. Even after offering his wallet and cash, the thug still says its his day to die. Thankfully, before the thug could do anything, the guy in the suv has time to pull his .45 out from between the seat and shoots the punk. He runs about 30 feet and drops dead! Now it turns out the little punk was only 13 years old! Of course the media has posted a nice picture of him in a jacket and white shirt. Also says he was the school quaterback etc.....Thankfully when you read the story and other related stories to it, the truth comes out and it seems to have been some kind of gang related crime. So far, no charges have been filed and he has left Alabama. But not without hiring a couple good lawyers just to be safe! Here's a couple articles about it:
CC
“Why are there so many hold ups with these thug kids?”
Because their parent(s) suck by not being parents who provide love and boundaries, thus, leaving it wide open for the gang bangers to fill that hole with “respect” and a pseudo love.
there will be cameras around the condo area - no doubt
Jinns, poltergeists, ghosts, evil spirits, demons, disembodied space aliens, nephilim are suddenly and without warning occupying the bodies of young black males and forcing them to do evil against their will!
Yeah, that explains it....
1) Alabama has criminal conspiracy and complicity laws which seem at first glance to me to make conspirators and accomplices participants in whatever crime they are conspiring to commit. You might want to try to make sense of it HERE.
2) I am uncertain what is meant in Alabama law by "causes the death of any person." Who caused the young thug's death? Was it his intended victim, his accomplices, or both?
1) Alabama has criminal conspiracy and complicity laws which seem at first glance to me to make conspirators and accomplices participants in whatever crime they are conspiring to commit. You might want to try to make sense of it HERE.
2) I am uncertain what is meant in Alabama law by "causes the death of any person." Who caused the young thug's death? Was it his intended victim, his accomplices, or both?
Notice whenever someone goes berserk and kills a bunch of people, or just kills one person, all the neighbors say “He was such a nice person. I can’t believe he’d do something like this.”
Just once I’d like to see the neighbors say “The guy was freakin’ nuts! We were all waiting for him to go off! He’s probably got dead bodies buried all over the place! It’s about time the cops arrested the crazy bastard!”
Facebook page? “Search” for this page.
Mya Pruitt (Jaquares Cortez Walker)
Sounds like he forgot his hoodie.
My brief research on Alabama law found no direct cases where an accomplice was murdered by a victim. The following commentary, which seems to indicate that the other defendants cannot be prosecuted, is from the Lexis notes under the Alabama Murder statute:
The primary judicial qualification of the rule has taken the form of a requirement of proximate or “natural and probable” causation. Commonwealth v. Bolish, 113 A.2d 464 (Pa. 1955) (not murder if intervening and superseding act breaks chain of events). People v. Stamp, 82 Cal. Rptr. 598 (1970) (foreseeability of death not essential).
Another aspect of felony-murder is when does it commence and terminate? Does the felony continue for purposes of the rule after its commission but during escape? How long does escape continue? The courts have treated the matter differently. See Kadish & Paulsen, Criminal Law and Its Processes 341 (2d ed. 1969). The majority follows the “continuous transaction” test. People v. Stamp, supra.
Some jurisdictions have imposed liability only when the defendant or his accomplice committed the actual act that caused the death but not to situations where the act causing death was that of another person. Commonwealth v. Redline, 137 A.2d 472 (Pa. 1958) (accomplice killed by policemen; felony-murder inapplicable). People v. Washington, 402 P.2d 130 (Cal. 1965) (accomplice killed by victim).
There is a paucity of Alabama cases on felony-murder: Kilgore v. State, 74 Ala. 1 (1884) (robbery); Hardley v. State, 202 Ala. 24, 79 So. 362 (1918) (burglary or robbery). There is some dicta for the conclusion that homicide occurring during a felony not enumerated by the statute as first degree murder would be second degree murder: Fields v. State, 52 Ala. 348 (1875); Davis v. State, 246 Ala. 101, 19 So.2d 358 (1944); Miller v. State, 145 Ala. 677, 40 So. 47 (1906) (1st degree murder for death of prison guard by dynamite blast; probably “universal malice”).
I'd check Ala. Code 13A-6-2 to see whether 'participant' is limited to others who are participants in committing the crime (which is the way it reads to this lawyer's eyes).
You may well find that the others in the car with Ja'Quares can't be charged with murder under Ala. Code Section 13A-6-2(a)(3) because the death was caused by one of the targeted victims of the attempted crime and not a participant in the attempted crime. There is no definition of 'participant' in Ala. Code Section 13A-6-1, which is the general definitions section for Article 1 (Homicides) and Article 2 (Assaults) of Title 13A: Criminal Code - Chapter 6 - Offenses Involving Danger to the Person. I haven't researched appellate decisions on Ala. Code Section 13A-6-2(a)(3).
>>>”It’s like he’s still here, and I feel him HOLDING ME UP”, she said.<<<
Yeah, I could see this. “Give me all your money NOW, Mom, or I’ll blow your head off!”
“All I can do is pray, and know God was ready to take his angel.”<<<
Sorry, Mom; God’s “angels” don’t commit armed carjackings, Satan’s servants do.
>>> “I don’t want it put out like he was a bad person or a mean person, because he wasn’t,” Latonya Walker, 38, said Tuesday <<<
Bad is as bad does. “Good” people don’t pull guns on innocent people and attempt to steal their automobiles.
I’d love it if one day one of these parents would be honest with themselves and everyone else and say something like “I tried to rasie him right, but as much as I hate to say it, my kid turned out to be a no good, rotten, violent, thug.” or even better, “If I had been a better parent, this never would have happened.”
I can’t even figure out how to pronounce it. I talk to insurance carriers on the phone all day long and need to document the name of the person with whom I spoke. Seems like most of them that are still in the U.S. now I have to include the phrase, “Spell please” after they state their name, particularly if they are located in the east. At least when talking with a call center in India or the Philippines they have the good sense to use a simple American name like Ed or Susan for reference purposes.
What do you make of this?
or
He was not 13, but going to be 15 in June, according to his misspelling mother.
Perps just never seem to learn, not everyone is an easy victim
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