A Little Rock teenager, accused in separate instances of robbing one teenager and trying to shoot another, will be prosecuted in juvenile court, a Pulaski County Circuit judge ruled on Monday.
Prosecutors had charged Rashon Lamont Maxwell Jr., 16, as an adult with robbery and two counts each of aggravated assault, committing a terroristic act and second-degree unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle.
Judge Herb Wright transferred the case to juvenile court after a hearing Monday, ruling that the teenager — who has never been in trouble with the law before — is significantly immature and could be rehabilitated in the juvenile-justice program. However, the judge did have Maxwell taken into custody after the hearing when the teen failed a drug test.
Maxwell’s mother, Kienna Flowers, 32, told the judge that being arrested twice and facing criminal charges has been a “a whole attitude change” in her son, the oldest of her four children. She said he’s become a more respectful and obedient child who has come to spend more time with his siblings since being jailed for more than three weeks. Maxwell was not brought up to behave the way he’s accused of acting, Flowers told the judge.
“That hurts my heart,” she said of the criminal charges. “That’s not my son. It’s very disappointing.”
He’s never been in trouble with the law before, but he was enrolled in the Hamilton Learning Academy — an alternative school in Little Rock — for fighting while he was in middle school, she said. The boy’s father, from whom she’s divorced, spends time with the teen only occasionally and pays child support only when he’s able to find work, she said.
Flowers also blamed the rough neighborhood he’s grown up in for some of the problems, saying she hopes to move the family away from Boyd Street. She also said hopes to get her son enrolled in the Job Corps Center, where he can get vocational training while also obtaining his high school diploma. He’s getting good grades in school, she said.
Also testifying on the teen’s behalf was Neva Johnson, dropout prevention coordinator at the Hamilton Learning Academy, where the boy is enrolled.
Both Johnson and Flowers described Maxwell as a follower who is susceptible to bad influences, with Johnson saying intake screening done at the Hamilton school shows the teen to be notably susceptible to peer pressure.
She said she was shocked by the charges against him because the accusations do not match the way he’s behaved at school, telling the judge the teen was previously enrolled in Hamilton when he was in middle school. He was quiet and well-behaved then, Johnson testified. Currently, he’s meeting all of his educational expectations, she told the judge.
Deputy prosecutor Matt Stauffer told the judge Maxwell’s second arrest was in February, about a month after the teen — while attending J.A. Fair High School — took the cellphone of a 14-year-old pupil on a school bus, then threatened to kill the boy when he tried to get his phone back. Maxwell had the phone on him when he was arrested, court records show.
He had been free on bond about 4½ months since his first arrest in September, about five weeks after his 16th birthday, when Maxwell and a second teen, Romii Vashaal Steward, were accused of trying to shoot another teenager, Trevon McCullough, 16, at the Westbridge Apartments at 2123 Labette Manor Drive.
According to police testimony, McCullough told detectives that Steward, Maxwell and a third person, whom he knew only as Willie, first shot at him from a passing car, then Steward and Maxwell got out of the car to chase him and shoot some more.
McCullough was able to show police the scene of the shooting where investigators collected four spent shell casings, and police found two bullet strikes on the apartments, with one bullet piercing the wall of a residence, detective Angela Everett said.
The prosecutor showed the judge a four-minute video taken from YouTube that was said to show Maxwell, calling himself “Scoota Da Shoota,” calling out McCullough before the run-in.
Defense attorney Jordan Tinsley questioned the significance of the “play acting” video, pointing out that it’s common for young men Maxwell’s age to become infatuated with the “gangster rap” lifestyle that celebrates firearms and displaying large amounts of cash.