An 11-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of murdering his mother has been ordered to stand trial.
The boy is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The district attorney’s office is seeking to try him as an adult. The court has ordered that the boy’s name not be revealed because he may still be tried as a child.
In July, the court found the boy competent, according to court records.
Milwaukee Detective Timothy Keller testified in court on Tuesday about speaking with the boy about his mother’s death.
The detective said he questioned the boy the next day and the then 10-year-old boy admitted shooting her but called it an accident, according to WISN.
“[The boy] stated that he took up a shooting stance and was pointing the gun at her as she was walking towards him and asking him to put it down. And that’s when he indicated that he fired the gun with his intent to scare her by shooting the wall behind her,” Keller testified.
“He had made a purchase on his mother’s Amazon account for some virtual reality goggles the morning after this homicide occurred. And [family] were concerned because he had had an argument with her about whether he could have these prior to the homicide,” Keller said.
I don’t think he should be charged as an adult but I think there’s a gap wider than my mom’s ass between “charged as an adult” and “it’s an accident just let him go”. Even if you didn’t intend to kill someone pointing a gun at them and pulling the trigger isn’t an accident. There needs to be an intervention here, both for the health of the kid and the safety of other people. This isn’t a whoopsiedoodle, he was mad so he shot at her.
I agree, appropriate action should be taken. Just what exactly falls into that bucket though?
You can’t put an 11 year old in jail for man slaughter (I would call it that, not murder). Juvi? I really am not qualified enough to know my ass from a hole in the ground here.
What do you think?
following the law as written for an 11 year old defendant would be a good start. I’ll admit to also being unqualified but I don’t need to know exactly what point a person is fully competent to be treated as an adult by the judicial system to know that an 11 year old hasn’t reached that point just like I don’t need to know the exact coordinates of the Mexico-US border to know that I, as someone in Pennsylvania, haven’t crossed it.
Isn’t that the point of the calling someone a “minor”, though? Decision making capacity isn’t all there yet, higher chance of the stupid, believing you can fly, that sort of thing.
The article said he was aiming for the wall behind the mom. Maybe he thought he was some kind of ace combat special forces or something because of the VR headset stuff.