After Shooting Another Teen In Sarasota, 14-Year-Old Boy Charged With Murder: Police

SARASOTA, FL — A teenager faces a felony murder charge after the Friday night deadly shooting of a 14-year-old boy in Sarasota, police said in a news release.

The suspect, a 14-year-old from Sarasota, was arrested Monday just after 3 a.m.

The victim’s name hasn’t been released to the public under Marsy’s Law. Patch isn’t publishing the name of the suspect, a minor, because the case is currently being handled by the Circuit Court of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit’s juvenile division.

After the shooting was reported Friday, officers went to a home in the 1500 block of 29th Street just before 10 p.m. and found the victim dead inside with a gunshot wound to the chest.

At the scene, the suspect’s mother told officers the victim approached the home with a gunshot wound and then left, collapsing at the end of the driveway, according to police reports.

While speaking with her, officers noticed blood on the living room floor, her clothing and a towel, as well as blood smears on the door leading from the living room to a carport and an SUV under the carport, police said. They also saw a pistol on the laundry room floor, a single shell casing by the door and blood smears on the floor.

In an interview following the shooting, the suspect claimed three other friends were hanging out at his home that night and one of them shot the victim. The accused teen told detectives he saw his friend shoot the gun and run from his home. Then, the victim ran from the utility room asking for help. His mother tried to help the boy, who ran from the home and collapsed in the yard, the suspect told police.

Investigators said this story wasn’t true. Two of the three friends weren’t at the home the night of the shooting, according to police reports.

The third friend told detectives he saw both the suspect and the victim holding a gun while all three hung out in the home’s utility room before the shooting. The third teen left because his mother called him to come home. The suspect called him later that night to tell him that the victim was dead, according to police.

The next day, the suspect called again, this time telling his friend that he put a gun behind an abandoned house across the street near a shed. The suspect asked him to get the gun, but the teen refused.

Following the interview, Sarasota detectives found a black plastic bag with a firearm inside it behind the home.

The case remains under investigation. Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Sarasota Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division at 941-263-6070 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers by calling 941-366-TIPS (8477) or online at www.sarasotacrimestoppers.com.