Holly Hill, FL – A pair of underage brothers from Michigan are sentenced to probation for shooting BB rounds at 4 people while they relaxed by the pool of a Holly Hill apartment complex earlier this summer.
7th Circuit Judge David Hood also sentenced the boys – ages 12 and 16 – to a 7pm curfew, to write letters of apology and make restitution to the victims following a court hearing on Thursday.
The Holly Hill Police Department issued arrest warrants for both boys a week after that June 8th incident at the Blue Tide Apartments on Riverside Drive, but it took another 2 weeks to get them back down to Florida because police were trying to get the mother’s cooperation, according to HHPD Chief Steve Aldrich.
HHPD did not publicly release the boys’ identities.
The boys will be on probation until they are each 19 years old and must write essays on the effect of crime on society as well as meet a school attendance requirement and take a gun safety course, according to 7th Circuit State Attorney spokesman Spencer Hathaway.
Each of the boys was charged with felony aggravated battery with a weapon and several counts of misdemeanor simple battery after injuring those 4 people by firing BB rounds at them from their grandmother’s apartment.
Police say the boys were staying with their grandmother – a resident at the Blue Tide Apartments – at the time of the shooting and that neither one of them cooperated with investigators when questioned before they returned to Michigan.
According to the charging affidavit, 1 of the 4 people those boys allegedly shot took a BB round to her mouth, breaking 2 of her bottom teeth. That same 33-year-old woman was also allegedly shot 1 time in the shoulder and went to Halifax Health Medical Center for treatment.
A married couple complained of being shot in the back and chest while another woman complained of being shot in the shoulder, according to the incident report.
HHPD believes the boys used a BB rifle to take aim at those people from windows in their grandmother’s first-floor apartment just north of the pool area.
The affidavit notes that several holes were found in the window screens of the 57-year-old woman’s apartment that were consistent with a BB round.
The boys’ grandmother admitted to HHPD soon afterward that there was a BB gun in her apartment and turned it over to police, but insisted her grandsons didn’t shoot anyone.
The photo above of that gun is courtesy of HHPD.
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.