Warrants give new details about Hillside High student’s death in gun deal gone wrong
Four months after one Hillside High student was killed and another was injured in a shooting, search warrants reveal the incident occurred during an attempted robbery.
A group of teens set up a meeting to sell a gun Feb. 8 near the American Tobacco Trail, about a quarter-mile from campus, warrants show. Anthony Feaster, 17, and an unidentified 15-year-old male were shot, warrants show. Feaster, who was shot in the chest, died from his injuries at a hospital.
Two groups of teens met around 1 p.m. that Wednesday afternoon near the trail in the vicinity of the Durham School of Technology and W.G. Pearson Magnet Elementary.
Feaster and three other juveniles planned to “coordinate robbing” the other group, according to one teenager’s testimony to Durham police investigators.
Upon encountering each other, Feaster drew a loaded gun on one of the other teenagers he planned on robbing.
The other teen then pulled out his own gun and shot Feaster once. The warrants didn’t spell out who allegedly shot the 15-year-old juvenile, whom, along with his friend, had been the target of the attempted robbery.
The teen who was shot broadcasted a live video to Instagram while riding in an ambulance and spoke about what had just happened. The video was deleted but later obtained by investigators, according to the warrants.
No arrests have been made, and the Durham District Attorney’s Office has not charged anyone yet in the case. Police continue to investigate the shooting, according to ABC11, The News & Observer’s newsgathering partner.
Police have not said whether the firearms involved in the incident were reported stolen.
Firearm crimes among juveniles on the rise
Recent juvenile crime data from the N.C. Department of Public Safety shows more young people have been involved in firearm-related crimes from 2018 through 2022.
“What we’ve seen is that four years ago, about 3% of juvenile crimes in North Carolina involved a firearm. That number increased to 13%,” said William L. Lassiter, the Deputy Secretary for Juvenile Justice, in an interview.
To put the data into perspective, Lassiter said, that translates to an increase of about 1,500 firearm-related incidents with juveniles to 4,500 incidents over four years.
“Young people are stealing firearms because they can get a lot of money on the street for them,” Lassiter said.
Guns — often stolen from vehicles — end up in the hands of juveniles, and in turn, surface in situations like the one near Hillside High School, said Lassiter.
“That went from 10% of the reasons why kids broke into vehicles (in 2018) to last year when it was 21%” of youth car break-ins, he said.
That’s according to DPS presented by Gov. Roy Cooper in early June when he launched the NC S.A.F.E. (Secure All Firearms Effectively) initiative.
In March, Lassiter presented additional data that shows overall juvenile offenses increased nearly 24% during the reporting year that ended July 30, 2022. Lassiter’s presentation to the Governor’s Crime Commission showed offenses climbed from 29,013 to 35,883.
Juvenile violent crimes jumped 21%, from 1,822 to 2,213 incidents during the reporting period of the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, The News & Observer previously reported.
Those crimes include robberies, shootings and murders. Most involve firearms — 65% of the cases where minors were arrested for violent crimes.
There have been 21 juveniles shot in Durham this year, according to data as of June 18 from the Durham Police Department shows. Not all of the shootings were fatal.
