Chardon teen to be tried as adult in school shooting

THOMAS J. SHEERAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHARDON — A 17-year-old will be tried as an adult in the school shoot­ing deaths of three stu­dents, a juve­nile court judge ruled Thurs­day after hear­ing a sheriff’s deputy describe how the teen wore a T-shirt with the word “Killer” and admit­ted shoot­ing people.

T.J. Lane admit­ted fir­ing at stu­dents sit­ting at a cafe­te­ria table at Chardon High School east of Cleve­land on Feb. 27, killing three and seri­ously wound­ing two, author­i­ties say.

Lane, with his grand­par­ents and the rel­a­tives of vic­tims sit­ting apart in court, swal­lowed hard and blinked as Geauga County Juve­nile Court Judge Tim­o­thy Gren­dell announced that he should be tried as an adult.

Lane could face life in prison if he’s con­victed. Minors are not eli­gi­ble for the death penalty in Ohio. Had his case been routed to juve­nile court, the max­i­mum pos­si­ble penalty would have kept him jailed until he turned 21.

The judge said he found prob­a­ble evi­dence in all six charges against Lane, includ­ing aggra­vated mur­der counts. He rejected a defense request to release Lane on a $500,000 bond and said Lane would pose a risk to flee and a safety risk to the community.

The rul­ing capped a morn­ing hear­ing that offered new details about the attack but left unan­swered the ques­tion of motive.

The judge, over the objec­tions of The Asso­ci­ated Press and other media out­lets, cleared the court­room of every­one but Lane and attor­neys while a sur­veil­lance video of the shoot­ing scene was played. The tape could jeop­ar­dize Lane’s chance to get a fair trial, the judge ruled.

Attor­neys in the case are under a gag order and the judge extended it to pro­hibit any dis­cus­sion of the video.

Geauga County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Bili­cic, who hur­riedly dressed when called to duty for the shoot­ing, tes­ti­fied that he helped arrest Lane, who was wear­ing a T-shirt with the word “Killer,” about a mile from the school and ques­tioned him closely.

Asked by defense attor­ney Mark DeVan if Lane had admit­ted, “I shot peo­ple,” the deputy answered yes.

The deputy said that Lane was asked about a motive and responded, “I don’t know.”

Asked by the deputy how many peo­ple he had shot, Lane responded, “I have no idea,” Bili­cic said.

The deputy also acknowl­edged that Lane indi­cated he hadn’t been using drugs, wasn’t sui­ci­dal or depressed and hadn’t been bullied.

Asked if he had hit any­one in the head, Lane told the deputy, “I don’t know.”

The defense line of ques­tion­ing appar­ently was meant to under­score a psychiatrist’s find­ings that Lane some­times loses touch with real­ity and suf­fers from hal­lu­ci­na­tions, psy­chosis and fantasies.

One of the first offi­cers at the scene, Chardon Patrol­man Matt DeLisa, tes­ti­fied that he found the vic­tims near a cafe­te­ria table with lots of blood around.

Some rel­a­tives of vic­tims held hands dur­ing the tes­ti­mony and choked back tears. Rel­a­tives weren’t called to tes­tify and deputies guarded the doors as fam­ily mem­bers left before oth­ers in the court­room were allowed to leave.

Gren­dell pre­vi­ously found the teenager men­tally com­pe­tent to stand trial in juve­nile court, where he was charged with three counts of aggra­vated mur­der and two counts of attempted aggra­vated mur­der. Gren­dell said the rul­ing on men­tal com­pe­tency may not be used in other legal pro­ceed­ings, mean­ing the issue may be revis­ited in adult court.

A psy­chi­a­trist had tes­ti­fied that none of Lane’s symp­toms detailed in a men­tal eval­u­a­tion would pre­vent him from under­stand­ing the case against him and help­ing in his defense. The psy­chi­a­trist said he saw no evi­dence that Lane was fak­ing men­tal illness.

Lane attended an alter­na­tive school for stu­dents who haven’t done well in tra­di­tional schools; he had been at Chardon wait­ing for a bus.

Pros­e­cu­tor David Joyce said Lane has admit­ted tak­ing a .22-caliber pis­tol and a knife to the high school and fir­ing 10 shots at a group of stu­dents sit­ting at a cafe­te­ria table. The motive for the shoot­ing remains unclear, though Joyce appar­ently has ruled out the­o­ries involv­ing bul­ly­ing or drug dealing.

Posted by AP News on May 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.