Judge: Victim’s shooting recantation dubious

A Little Rock woman’s last-minute effort Tuesday to recant accusations against one of two teens charged with shooting at her “strains credibility,” said a judge in Pulaski County Circuit Court.

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Jarvius Dante Settles and Takesha Johnson, both 17, are each charged with 12 counts of committing a terroristic act, one for every spent bullet shell casing found at 4200 W. 17th St. after a Nov. 1 shooting at the Little Rock residence. Each of the the Class B felony charges carries up to 20 years in prison.

No one was injured, but police say the shooting endangered the lives of numerous residents, including children playing in the area. Deputy prosecutor Jayme Butts Hall told the judge the gunfire is a “steppingstone” to increasingly violent crime and could have easily become a homicide.

The teenagers petitioned Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen to transfer them to juvenile court, but Griffen declined after separate back-to-back hearings lasting about six hours.

Settles, with misdemeanor juvenile convictions for obstructing governmental operations, trespass and fleeing, was on juvenile probation when he was arrested. Johnson has never been in trouble with the law before.

The accusations are too serious and there’s little evidence that the two could be rehabilitated in the juvenile system by the time they turn 21 in 2017, the judge ruled.

“Twelve counts of terroristic act are not the stuff which juvenile courts are designed to handle,” Griffen said. “The act of pulling and discharging a handgun is not an accident.”

The pair are accused of targeting 18-year-old Martia Anderson, who was winning a fistfight against their friend, a teenage girl. Detective Sarah Hicks testified the .40-caliber casings, plus some bullet fragments, left an 80-foot trail from the street to Anderson’s front door. Testing of the bullets by the state Crime Laboratory has not been completed.

But Anderson told the judge Tuesday that she had mistakenly named Johnson as one of the shooters and she wanted the charges dropped.

“I mixed it up,” she testified during questioning by defense attorney Fernando Padilla. “She did nothing to me, nothing at all. I promise she did not do a thing.”

Talking to police in the immediate aftermath of the gunfire, she wrongly named Johnson when she meant to identify the woman she was fighting with, Kayla Parham, as the other shooter. Anderson said Parham has it in for her, but she doesn’t know why, telling the judge she saw Parham pull a gun and fire after Settles had fired two shots from his weapon. She also said her brother had returned fire during the altercation.

They shot at her because she was winning the fight, Anderson told the judge, testifying that Parham continues to harass her by phone and should be the one charged instead of Johnson.

“I just want her to stop calling me,” Anderson said. “I just want her to leave me alone.”

The judge was skeptical and asked Anderson why had she waited almost five months to tell authorities she had picked the wrong person.

“I’m wrestling with this right now. I need you to help me understand,” Griffen said.

Pressed by the judge, Anderson said she had several reasons for being unable to contact police or prosecutors before Tuesday’s hearing.

Anderson, who turned 18 about a week after the shooting, said she hasn’t regularly had a working phone or reliable transportation, and she didn’t know how to use directory assistance to get the phone number when she couldn’t get it from her mother.

“To put it mildly, the court finds Ms. Anderson’s testimony strains credibility,” the judge concluded, describing her excuses as “strikingly dubious.”

The judge noted that according to police testimony, three other witnesses, Shermaine Williams, Quiana Lowe and Anderson’s sister Maiya Anderson, had identified Johnson not only as the person who drove Settles and Parham to the neighborhood for the fight, but had also told police Johnson pulled a gun out of her purse and opened fire as Parham was losing.

Johnson’s mother, Stephanie Eperson, testified her daughter was a good student who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time while Settles’ parents, Latashia Necole Settles and Lerone Perry, described their son as a good, smart child who made “dumb choices” but could still be redeemed.

Arkansas, Pages 15 on 03/20/2014

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