The 15-year-old victim in an on-campus shooting at Watson Chapel Junior High School has died, his mother announced Wednesday on social media.
Daylon Burnett died Wednesday, two days after he was shot in a hallway near the school library. A 15-year-old boy suspected of shooting Burnett was charged, hours before Burnett’s death, with battery in the first degree and will be tried as an adult. The charges likely will be upgraded.
“Y’all my boy got his wings at 5:35 p.m.,” Keisha Lee wrote on Facebook, posting a photo of her with her son.
The Watson Chapel School District cited the post in announcing Burnett’s death.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends,” the district posted.
An email from the Pine Bluff Police Department, sent to media outlets at 8 p.m., said the Pulaski County coroner’s office had confirmed Burnett’s death.
Earlier Wednesday, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Kyle Hunter read charges against Thomas Quarles, who was arrested near a home in the vicinity of the campus on Sulphur Springs Road, during a probable-cause hearing before Judge Kim Bridgforth in Jefferson County District Court.
Quarles remains held at Jack Jones Juvenile Detention Center with bail set at $1 million. Quarles is accused of shooting Burnett in a school hallway in front of the library. Burnett had been in the intensive care unit at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Hunter said.
According to the affidavit, Pine Bluff police officers responded to a shooting at the campus at 9:59 a.m. Monday. An officer said in a report Hunter read that “she was met by various school staff” and directed to the site of the shooting. One of the nurses was administering aid to Burnett when the officer arrived.
“The victim was breathing,” Hunter read in the report. “There was a slight pulse as the nurse was applying pressure to the back of the victim’s head.” Officers found two .380-caliber shell casings next to the victim, according to the report. Officers then began clearing the school for potential gunmen, and a female student identified Quarles to a detective, the report said The detective stated that she knew Quarles from “prior encounters,” according to the affidavit that Hunter read, and police obtained a description of him and what he was wearing — khaki pants and a hooded sweatshirt.
Quarles was last seen leaving campus heading to Sulphur Springs Road before he was arrested, the affidavit said. A Jefferson County sheriff ’s office investigator and the Arkansas Department of Correction K-9 search team sought him on foot, and when the search team reached East Greenway Drive, an officer told authorities that a person wearing a burgundy top with khaki pants was running behind a house at the end of East Greenway Drive. An officer continued tracking north toward that street, and as the K-9 search team approached the east side of the residence, the person was spotted behind an air conditioner unit.
Quarles was instructed to lie on the ground and taken into custody, Hunter read from the report. An investigator reported finding a Ruger LCP handgun in Quarles’ right-front pocket and a lighter in the left-front pocket. A cellphone was also found on the ground in that area, the report said. Hunter said those items were taken into custody as evidence.
Quarles and his mother told authorities that they would hire a lawyer and declined to answer questions.
“Because of the seriousness of this act and the likelihood Mr. Quarles would leave the jurisdiction if he was let out, the condition of the victim in this case, the state is asking the court to set a bond of $1 million, and that he be held, pursuant to that bond,” Hunter told Bridgforth.
A hearing for Quarles has been set for 9 a.m. April 12. Hunter had told the judge that if the victim died, new charges would reflect that.