A Vivian teenager must serve about five years for being invovled in a drive-by shooting that wounded two people at a party, the Caddo district attorney’s office reports.
Brandon Tyler, 16, was sentenced Monday in Caddo Juvenile Court to a term of juvenile life, which means until he 21 years old.
The youth was convicted of aggravated battery for shooting two people from a vehicle Dec. 23 in Vivian.
Previously, Tyler was convicted of a residential burglary in 2016 of burglary of an inhabited dwelling in 2018, for which he was placed on probation until March 7, 2022, with the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice.
Caddo Juvenile Court Judge Paul Young, who sentenced Tyler on Monday, took exception to the OJJ’s recommendation that the teenager be placed in an unsecured group home.
The judge said if Tyler is not placed in secure care, he would subpoena the OJJ deputy secretary to explain why.
“I support Judge Young’s strong stance in this case recognizing both public safety and the extensive effort and time it will take to hopefully rehabilitate this young man,” Caddo District Attorney James E. Stewart Sr. said in a statement.
“The Office of Juvenile Justice’s recommendation of non-secure care for this young man with an egregious criminal history who shot two citizens in a drive-by shooting deserves scrutiny, rebuke and investigation.”
Just after 2 a.m. Dec. 23, Caddo sheriff’s deputies were called to North Caddo Memorial Hospital in Vivian after a 16-year-old male arrived for treatment of a bullet graze to his head. He later taken to Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport, where he was treated an released.
Meantime, 20-year-olds Xzariel McFarland and Frankie Kimble, 20, both of Plain Dealing, went by private vehicle to Willis Knighton-North in Shreveport.
Both were released after being treated, Kimble for a graze wound to a calf and McFarland for a gunshot to a shoulder.
The gunfire was reported as a party was letting out at the National Guard Armory in the 600 block of Park Drive in Vivian.
Keshawn York, 17, of Vivian, was arrested on a charge of attempted second-degree murder and booked into Caddo Correctional Center later that afternoon.
Witnesses told detectives that York was in a moving vehicle when he fired a gun into a crowd of people.
Authorities found a gun believed to have been used in the shooting in a culvert on Centerville Road.
http://www.ksla.com/2019/03/04/juvenile-sentenced-serve-until-his-st-birthday-over-shooting-vivian/
