A North Little Rock High School student accepted a three-year prison sentence on Tuesday for taking a gun to school, two weeks after a circuit judge refused to transfer his case to juvenile court.
Kyrin Lebron pleaded guilty to possession of a handgun on school property in exchange for the three-year term that will be followed by a two-year suspended sentence. The charge is a Class D felony that carries up to six years in prison.
Judge Leon Johnson at an April hearing rejected Lebron's request to be tried in juvenile court, after prosecutors showed the judge photographs taken from the teen's Facebook page that showed Lebron handling guns, one of them said to be an AK-47, and posing with other young men, including a cousin, whom investigators said were gang members.
The pictures angered Johnson, who accused the teen of lying to his own mother about what was going on in his life. The judge told Lebron that the photos showed -- whatever his relationship to any gang -- that he was putting his life in danger. Johnson said he'd seriously considered granting the transfer until he saw the photos.
Police testified at the hearing that Lebron is assumed to be a member of the Gutta Boy gang, a North Little Rock offshoot of the South-side Piru, because he spent so much time with them. In Little Rock, they call themselves the Murder Mob.
Lebron has been jailed for about three months since his arrest in February, about a week before his 18th birthday. School officials, investigating an anonymous tip, found the loaded gun in his backpack.
He told authorities he had the gun to protect himself because he was afraid someone would drive up and shoot him when he went to his car.
His mother said Lebron was being bullied at school and that someone was after him. His tormentors had shot up her sister's home, where the family had been living, trying to get at him, she said.
School officials reported he'd been feuding with another student, Shaquan Markell Thompson, and some of Thompson's friends. Thompson, 18, has since been charged with first-degree murder, accused with another teen of killing a 58-year-old man in January.
Lebron's arrest this year was the second time police had found him with a gun. He was charged as a juvenile after the first arrest, on a misdemeanor gun charge, last fall during a Little Rock traffic stop of a car he was riding in.
At his juvenile-transfer hearing last month, Tony Hawkins, who oversees campus security at the school, testified that Lebron was not known to be a troublemaker.
"He's a good kid as far as I know," Hawkins said. "He's never been the type of student I would be worried about."
Michael Stone, an assistant superintendent in charge of safety, testified that Lebron appeared contrite, saying he had "messed himself up."
"I think he had realized what he'd done was not good," Stone, Lebron's former elementary school principal, testified.
He said Lebron was not known to school officials as a gang member.
Metro on 05/12/2018