OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Just over 24 hours after allegedly shooting another student inside Northwest High School the suspect appeared in court Wednesday in just the latest incident of teen violence in Omaha.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Appearing in court for the first time, 14-year-old Ramone Jefferson is being charged as an adult after allegedly shooting a 15-year-old student inside Northwest High School Tuesday. Jefferson is facing charges of first-degree assault. Use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and unlawful possession of a firearm on school grounds.
“We have charged this case as an adult court simply because of the nature of the charges themselves, this could have been a homicide,” said Don Kleine, Douglas County Attorney.
According to court documents police say Jefferson and the victim were fighting in the hallway when Jefferson shot the victim with a gun concealed in his sweatshirt. His public defender says Jefferson was excessively bullied.
"Upon interviewing the mother, she informed officers that there was continued and excessive bullying from school," the public defender said.
He added that the suspects mother was looking at other school options for his safety.
This unfortunately is just the latest incident of a young teen being charged with a violent crime in Omaha. In fact, reporter Molly Hudson was working on the story about juvenile crime when the shooting happened -- talking with Omaha Police Officer Association president Patrick Dempsey as reports of the shooting came through.
Molly: "I walked in here yesterday and as I walked in you told me there was a shooting at Northwest High School as we were about to start talking about juvenile crime in the community, what's going on?"
Dempsey: "I mean it is the same thing we have been talking about for months on end our juvenile crime is spiking through the roof right now, we lack accountability for these juveniles, and now it's spilled over into our school systems."
Just last month KMTV talked to officer Dempsey about the 6 juveniles arrested in connection to a Northwest Omaha homicide. But since then, “we haven't seen any changes, the policymakers haven't reached out, again on Saturday we had a 15-year-old and two 16-year-olds arrested of a shooting of another minor, it's just a vicious circle that we seem to not be able to climb out of," Dempsey said.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine says he has seen juvenile crime in our community progress over the years, with younger people committing violent crimes, calling it unimaginable.
"It's extremely disturbing I mean we need to do everything we can to prevent these kinds of activities," Kleine said.
Both Kleine and Dempsey believe it starts with accountability at home.
Jefferson is being held on $275,000 bond. His preliminary hearing is set for October 16.
