Teen charged as juvenile in Ohio school shooting

Seventeen-year-old T.J. Lane is led Tues­day from Juve­nile Court by Sheriff’s deputies in Chardon after his arraign­ment in the shoot­ing of five high school stu­dents Mon­day. Three of the five stu­dents wounded in the attacks have since died. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

THOMAS J. SHEERAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHARDON — A teenager was charged Thurs­day with killing three stu­dents in a school shoot­ing, the first step in pro­ceed­ings that could see him charged as an adult and fac­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of life with­out parole if convicted.

The charges filed in Geauga County juve­nile court accuse T.J. Lane, 17, of killing three stu­dents and wound­ing two oth­ers in the shoot­ing Mon­day morn­ing at Chardon High School, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

He is charged with three counts of aggra­vated mur­der, two counts of attempted aggra­vated mur­der and one count of felo­nious assault.

Stu­dents say the gun­man was chased from a cafe­te­ria by an assis­tant foot­ball coach, Frank Hall, who has been praised as a hero. Hall spoke shortly after the charges were filed and said he wants the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies to know he was with their chil­dren and wiped away their tears.

“I don’t know why this hap­pened,” he said. “I only wish I could have done more. I’m not a hero. I’m just a foot­ball coach and a study hall teacher.” The emer­gency respon­ders at the scene were the real heroes, he said.

No motive has been deter­mined. Pros­e­cu­tor David Joyce has said that vic­tims were selected at ran­dom and that Lane is some­one “who’s not well.”

Lane’s attor­ney, Robert Fari­nacci, couldn’t imme­di­ately be reached for com­ment on the charges. A mes­sage was left at his office.

Chil­dren con­victed of juve­nile crimes in Ohio are typ­i­cally behind bars only until they turn 21 in the most seri­ous cases. But Joyce has already said he plans to charge Lane as an adult, mean­ing he could face life in prison with­out parole if con­victed of sim­i­lar adult charges.

Minors are not eli­gi­ble for the death penalty in Ohio, whether they are con­victed as juve­niles or adults.

Lane, who attends an alter­na­tive school for stu­dents who haven’t done well in tra­di­tional schools, admit­ted tak­ing a .22-caliber pis­tol and a knife to Chardon High and fir­ing 10 shots at a group of stu­dents sit­ting at a cafe­te­ria table Mon­day morn­ing, Joyce said.

Killed were Demetrius Hewlin, 16, Rus­sell King Jr., 17, and Daniel Parmer­tor, 16. The motive for the shoot­ing is unclear, though Joyce has appeared to rule out the­o­ries involv­ing bul­ly­ing or drug-dealing.

Hewlin attended Chardon High. King and Parmer­tor were stu­dents at a voca­tional school and were wait­ing in the Chardon High cafe­te­ria for their daily bus when they were shot.

Parmer­tor had just got­ten his first job at a bowl­ing alley and couldn’t stop talk­ing about how excited he was to pick up his first pay­check later this week, his par­ents said.

Two other stu­dents were wounded. Nick Wal­czak remains in seri­ous con­di­tion. An 18-year-old girl was released from the hos­pi­tal Tuesday.

Lane was a nor­mal boy who excelled in school and played out­side often with his sis­ter, build­ing snow hills and skate­board­ing, accord­ing to Steve Saw­czak, a fam­ily friend who’s a pas­tor and has worked with trou­bled children.

He said he never would have allowed his own grand­chil­dren to play nearby if he thought any­thing was wrong with Lane.

Posted by AP News on Mar 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.