A North Little Rock teen accused of shooting a man must stand trial as an adult on a first-degree battery charge, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson ruled Friday.
Authorities contend that 17-year-old Lamarion Gilliam associates with members of the North Little Rock street gang Gutta Boys if he's not actually a member.
Deputy prosecutor Christy Bjornson showed the judge social media photographs of Gilliam posing with firearms, some of which were posted after the March 19 shooting that wounded a man in the neck in front of the teen's home at 5019 Allen St.
The judge also learned mid-hearing that Gilliam has been wanted by juvenile authorities since August because they said he cut off his ankle monitor. A juvenile-court assessment has deemed Gilliam as "high risk" to reoffend, according to testimony.
He has been on probation from juvenile court since June 2020, and pleaded guilty to a theft charge related to residential burglary in March, 11 days before the shooting. He's since been charged in Saline County juvenile court, along with two teenage friends, with nine felony counts of breaking or entering and theft.
At Friday's hearing over whether the battery case should be tried in juvenile court, shooting victim Michael Jenkins testified that he did not know who shot him and could not identify Gilliam as his assailant.
Jenkins said his brother, Howard Jerome Jenkins, 32, was driving him to get a haircut when they stopped at the Allen Street home to return a cellphone to someone.
Michael Jenkins said he was on his phone and not paying attention to what was happening as his brother and a woman -- Gilliam's mother -- rifled through his brother's SUV looking for the phone.
Jenkins said he did not start paying attention to what was happening until the exchange between his brother and the woman grew heated, with the woman yelling that he and his brother had something of hers. As the woman was yelling, a man wearing only shorts came out of the house and cocked a pistol, Jenkins said, telling the judge he didn't get a good look at the man because he was focused on the weapon.
Next, the man drew the woman into the home and followed her inside, before emerging again with the gun, wearing a sweatshirt with his shorts, Jenkins testified.
He said he still didn't get a good look at the gunman because he recognized trouble was coming, got out of his brother's vehicle and was walking away. Jenkins said he heard a shot and felt pain, learning at the hospital that a bullet had grazed his neck.
Detective Jeff Coburn told the judge that witnesses quickly directed police to Gilliam. The teen told investigators that he'd been sleeping when his mother woke him up to tell him she had been in an altercation with some men outside, Coburn testified. Gilliam told investigators he went outside and saw an SUV driving away, and that someone inside the vehicle shot at him, the detective said.
Gilliam said he went back into the house, got his gun from under his bed, went back outside and shot at the vehicle, Coburn told the judge, saying investigators found no evidence that more than one weapon had been fired.
Defense attorney Lou Marczuk urged the judge to transfer the case to juvenile court, submitting evidence that Gilliam has never been through any of the juvenile system's rehabilitative programs.
The teen's mother, 34-year-old Christine Rose Wells, told the judge her only child has had a difficult life. She said he spent two years in foster care because of her drug problems and was further traumatized by seeing the Christmas 2017 arrest of his father, Richard Gilliam, on murder and kidnapping charges in Lonoke County that led to a 40-year prison sentence a few months ago.