Baby K Will Be Tried As An Adult In 2023 Attempted Shooting On School Bus: Report

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — A 16-year-old known as “Baby K” will be tried as an adult on charges connected to the attempted killing of a student on a Prince George’s County school bus in May of 2023.

Kaeden Holland was 15 when he and three other teens charged onto the school bus around 5 p.m. May 1, 2023, and tried to shoot a student, but the gun malfunctioned. The teenager suffered minor injures during the assault. Two adults - a bus driver and a bus aide - were on or near the bus at the time and were uninjured. The incident happened when the bus was stopped at Iverson Street and Sutler Drive in Oxon Hill to drop off students, Patch reported previously.

Video of the attack released by police shows a teenage attacker holding a gun to the victim’s head and chest while his two accomplices hold the victim down, police said. All three teens then beat the victim and fled.

A judge said Thursday the attempted shooting was planned and not the impulsiveness of youth, ordering Holland’s case to stay in the adult justice system. Holland, along with two other teens, was indicted in June on 16 charges including attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment.

During Thursday’s court proceedings, Prince George’s County Assistant State’s Attorney Sherrie Waldrup casted doubt on the juvenile system’s ability to help Holland, who Waldrup said is quick to anger and has a history of disrespect for authority going back to first grade, WTOP reported.

“While we don’t take any pleasure in asking for young people to be in an adult system what we have to understand also is that our greater responsibility is to make sure that lives are saved,” Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy said in a news conference after the judge's decision. “In this case we had a very serious violation of the law. A young boy could have died on a school bus. Those are the facts. That’s serious and that’s why we are treating this case with the level of seriousness we are and I believe that’s what the residents expect.”

Michael Lawlor, the lead defense attorney for Holland, argued the 16-year-old “is a child, that is a matter of fact,” and that the crime he’s accused of happened when Holland was too young to be mature enough to know, WTOP reported.

The case is set to go to trial March 18.

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