Police: 14-year-old arrested in fatal Carrick shooting was on probation
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A 14-year-old boy wanted in Monday night's deadly shooting along Parkfield Street in Pittsburgh's Carrick neighborhood has turned himself in to police.
According to court paperwork, Nigel Thompson is facing criminal homicide and weapons charges. Police said he was on probation at the time of the shooting.
Seventeen-year-old Damonte Hardrick was found with a gunshot wound to the head on Monday night and was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the criminal complaint, police tracked Thompson's GPS in his electronic home monitoring device to put him at the spot of the shooting on Parkfield Street. When they searched Thompson's address, they found he had removed the device.
This is the second time in the last six months someone on these devices has been accused in a shooting. Last fall, Shawn Davis was on an electronic home monitoring device and in a video told inmates he wasn't wearing it.
"I showed my dad, bro, and I took it off and put it back on," Davis said in a video call with inmates at the Allegheny County Jail.
Davis is accused of shooting at a funeral in Brighton Heights that injured six people. Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala has been critical of the devices. Sources in his office said this is a repeat problem. In the video of Davis, he described how he was taking the ankle monitor on and off.
"It's the weekend so I'm not sure if my [parole officer] is coming here or not," he said.
The DA said there is no assurance people will be safe from anyone on the ankle monitors.
Defense attorneys argue that there should not be a chilling effect on these devices. Phil DiLucente argues people facing lower offenses should not just be thrown in jail.
"That's bad for the overall citizens who once in a while get arrested for a crime," he told KDKA.
KDKA-TV reached out to the Allegheny County Juvenile Probation Office and the president judge of the Allegheny County District Magistrates but did not hear back by airtime.
"We can't look at these cases in a vacuum of one person is on home electronic monitoring and they violate it," DiLucente said.
Thompson went before a judge Wednesday afternoon and had his bail denied. He faces charges including homicide, possession of a gun by a minor and having a gun without a license.
He has a preliminary hearing on March 1.
