St. Pete boy, 14, charged with manslaughter in fatal shooting of 11-year-old brother

When St. Petersburg police caught a teenager breaking into a car, stealing a gun and hiding it in his waistband, prosecutors gave him a break.

The teen was placed on probation and allowed to finish the school year before being forced to serve 15 days in a juvenile detention center this summer.

He was fitted with an ankle monitor and sent home. But before summer vacation began, he shot his 11-year-old brother with another stolen gun.

Prosecutors have now charged the 14-year-old boy as an adult in connection with the death of his younger brother. The teenager, whom the Tampa Bay Times is not naming because he is a minor, is accused of shooting and killing Amir Williams on April 26.

He is charged with involuntary manslaughter and being a felon in possession of a firearm, both second-degree felonies, records show. He was transported to the Pinellas County Jail to await trial.

Amir's older brother told St. Petersburg police that he found the gun in an alley near his home, then brought it home and accidentally fired it while playing with it.

The gun was reportedly stolen during a vehicle burglary in the city two days before the incident.

There was no school the day of the shooting and the boys were home with their 13-year-old sister while their mother was at work, police said.

Pinellas-Pasco District Attorney Bruce Bartlett said his office is cracking down on youth gun violence and hopes the charges against the teen “send a message.”

“It’s an epidemic out there,” he said. “They treat it like a video game. They point (guns) around and shoot people and everything else. It's just… it's crazy. This has to stop. We need to get these guns off the streets.

Bartlett said the teen's previous gun theft charge was filed in juvenile court, which is not a public record under Florida law.

The teen told police he found another stolen gun in an alley the day his brother was killed.

Bartlett said the ankle monitor data corroborates part of the teen's story: He was in the alley at the time he said he found the gun. But the prosecutor is not convinced the boy came across the gun.

“I think he probably stole it from a car,” Bartlett said. “It wasn’t his first rodeo.”

The attorney general's office said it found inconsistencies in other parts of the teen's story.

Bartlett said he gave police different accounts of the shooting. In one story, he was in the bathroom and heard a gunshot. In another, he told police he thought the gun was empty, but forgot to remove the magazine. He aimed at the wall, but hit his brother, the teen said.

An autopsy of Amir revealed bullet holes in his wrist and temple. Bartlett said that was consistent with Amir raising his hands as if a gun was pointed at him.

“I can’t say he intended to kill his brother,” Bartlett said. “I think he was just messing around. To me, that suggests he pointed the gun at his brother when it went off.

Police body camera footage shows the boys' mother yelled at her 14-year-old son after he arrived home the day of the shooting and said she had already told him to get rid of the gun.

“They all knew he had a gun,” Bartlett said. “No one has really done anything about it.”

Prosecutors do not plan to charge the boys' mother in the case. When reached by phone, she told a Tampa Bay Times reporter she would call back and hung up.

Family members who gathered outside the house following the shooting remember Amir as an energetic 6th grader who tried to make everyone laugh.

Darryl Walls, who is the grandfather of Amir's sister-in-law, said the family wasn't shocked by the accusations, but they weren't “thrilled” either.

“I think it’s a little harsh,” he said.

Walls said authorities allowed the teen to attend his brother's funeral on May 11.

“They left him to cry with his family,” Walls said.

He spent the next day, Mother's Day, at home, he said. St. Petersburg police arrested him the following Monday.