Ohio teen indicted in 3 school shooting deaths

THOMAS J. SHEERAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

CLEVELAND — A 17-year-old boy has been charged with three counts of aggra­vated mur­der in the school shoot­ing deaths of three stu­dents and the wound­ing of three oth­ers, accord­ing to an indict­ment released Tuesday.

The indict­ment was returned by a Geauga County grand jury against T.J. Lane in the Feb. 27 attack at Chardon High School east of Cleveland.

A judge ruled last month that Lane must be tried as an adult. Lane could face life in prison if convicted.

He was indicted on three counts of aggra­vated mur­der, two counts of attempted aggra­vated mur­der and one count of felo­nious assault. No motive has been established.

One of Lane’s attor­neys, Mark DeVan, said there would be no comment.

Lane’s arraign­ment was sched­uled for Fri­day in Chardon. Killed in the attacks were Demetrius Hewlin, 16, Rus­sell King Jr., 17, and Daniel Parmer­tor, 16.

Minors aren’t 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 who sent the case to adult felony court 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.

A psy­chi­a­trist who exam­ined Lane tes­ti­fied ear­lier that that Lane some­times loses touch with real­ity and suf­fers from hal­lu­ci­na­tions, psy­chosis and fantasies.

But Dr. Phillip Resnick said none of the symp­toms detailed in a men­tal eval­u­a­tion would pre­vent Lane from under­stand­ing the case against him and help­ing in his defense.

Under a new state law, a child can be found com­pe­tent only if he or she is able to grasp the seri­ous­ness of the charges and under­stand the proceedings.

Resnick said Lane also has expe­ri­enced migraine headaches, a nar­row range of emo­tions and with­draw­ing from people.

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 at the start of the school day.

Posted by AP News on Jun 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.