A 17-year-old faces an attempted murder charge after he admitted to trying to fire a handgun at a sheriff’s deputy. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether he’ll be tried as a juvenile or an adult.
The teen also faces charges for possession of a handgun with a destroyed serial number, resisting law enforcement, carrying a handgun without a license and unlawful use of body armor, according to a press release from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. At about 9 p.m. Monday, a sheriff’s deputy stopped the teen and another boy near the B-Line trail for riding a moped without lights. He noticed the moped had been hot-wired and tried to detain the boys. The driver fled on foot into nearby woods, and several deputies and Bloomington Police Department officers followed. One deputy saw the teen and ordered him to stop. The officer saw a silver handgun in his hand. The teen fled again.
The deputies and officers eventually found the teen lying unresponsive in a weedy area. He was “dragged out and handcuffed,” according to the release. He wore body armor and had ammunition in his pockets. He admitted to having a gun but leaving it in the woods during the chase. Because he may have been under the influence of drugs, he was taken to Bloomington Hospital to have his blood drawn.
He told authorities that during the chase, he aimed the gun at the chest of the deputy who found him in the woods and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not go off. He suggested the gun’s magazine may have fallen out. He was released from the hospital and taken to a juvenile detention facility. Jeffrey Kehr, the first deputy prosecutor for the 10th judicial circuit, said as of Tuesday afternoon, the prosecutor’s office was waiting on a probable cause affidavit to be filed and would then decide whether to try the 17-year-old as an adult.
