Alleged Shooter's Uncle Charged In Murder Of 14-Year-Old Girl
Updated 04/30/14 - 1:41 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The uncle of a 14-year-old girl accused of killing a classmate during a fight over a boy has been charged with giving his niece the murder weapon and accompanying her to the fight in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Donnell Flora, 25, has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in connection with the death of 14-year-old Endia Martin, police said. His bail was set at $3 million at a bond hearing Wednesday afternoon.
Flora's 14-year-old niece also has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery, though her charges were filed in Juvenile Court due to her age. She allegedly shot Endia and another girl Monday afternoon in the 900 block of West Garfield Avenue.
Endia was shot in the back and died at the hospital. The other girl, age 16, was shot in the arm, and treated at St. Bernard Hospital.
Police have said Endia and the girl who shot her had been fighting over a boy.
Endia, a freshman at Tilden Career Community Academy High School, was walking home from school, when the other 14-year-old girl approached her, and pulled out a .38-caliber revolver. When she pulled the trigger, the gun jammed, but someone who was with her fixed it for her, and she shot Endia and her 16-year-old friend.
An eyewitness said Endia and the other girl who was shot ran across six lanes of traffic on Garfield Boulevard to try to escape, but by the time she reached the back door of a nearby home, the suspect shot her four times.
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said the girls' argument never would have escalated past a fistfight had someone not given her a gun.
"I'm very frustrated. I'm sickened. Three 14-year-old lives were changed forever yesterday by the introduction of a gun into a fistfight," Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Tuesday.
Flora, who is wheelchair bound, paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot four years ago, allegedly gave his niece the gun she used to shoot Endia, and accompanied her to the fight. Police said the gun had been stolen from its legal owner's car two weeks before the fight. McCarthy said it's "absolutely insane" that the state's concealed carry law allows people to store their guns in a car.
"Those guns need to be in lock boxes, in safes, in people's residences or on their person," McCarthy said.
He noted police officers are not allowed to store their firearms in their cars.
In court, it was revealed the suspect was an honors student at John Hope College Prep High School, and was on a student leadership council. A judge ordered she remain in custody, after prosecutors argued she is a danger to the public and herself, and that the shooting clearly was premeditated.
Because she has been charged as a juvenile, the maximum penalty the suspect could face is incarceration until her 21st birthday.
A 17-year-old boy also has been charged with trying to hide the gun. The teen, whom police refused to identify because of his age, is charged with two felonies, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and reckless damage to property, as well as two misdemeanors, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm.
