Teens playing with guns in Lakewood home led to deadly shooting. Now 1 is sentenced
A Lakewood teenager who was 16 when he fatally shot a friend while playing with guns inside a home near American Lake was sentenced Friday to a little more than three-and-half years in state custody.
David Raul Maldonado, now 18, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in November for recklessly causing the June 22, 2023, death of 16-year-old Desmin Jarrett.
The punishment Pierce County Superior Court Judge Susan Adams imposed was below the standard range for defendants prosecuted in similar cases. That decision was recommended by prosecutors and the defense, and Adams said it was supported by the fact that higher courts have clearly set out that the acts of youth are different from adults.
Adams said in deciding Maldonado’s sentence, she had to consider factors of immaturity and impetuosity, the defendant’s environment, family circumstances, peer pressure and factors that support successful rehabilitation.
“You were a young man making foolish, impulsive decisions,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, you had guns at your disposal, and a terrible, terrible tragedy, terrible, terrible thing took place.”
The defendant will serve his sentence in the custody of the Department of Children, Youth and Families. In Washington, people sentenced for crimes committed before they are 18 go to juvenile rehabilitation with that state agency until age 25, when they would transfer to the Department of Corrections.
Maldonado’s defense attorney, Bryan Hershman, described his client as a good student and multi-sport athlete who had fought through hardships in his life such as the incarceration of his mother when he was young.
Hershman said Maldonado would prove to Adams and the community that he’s a good man, and that the judge would never see him in court again.
Maldonado met Jarrett not long before the shooting occurred, Hershman said. At the time, Maldonado would go over to Jarrett’s house to smoke cannabis and play with guns that were in the house.
“That’s how this happened,” Hershman said. “He fled the scene, freaked out, then turned himself in because he realized what he had done.”
According to charging documents, Lakewood Police Department officers were dispatched to the incident at about 6:44 p.m. after a 911 caller reported that their son had been shot accidentally. Jarrett was transported to Madigan Army Medical Hospital, where he was declared dead that evening.
In interviews with detectives, Jarrett’s mother allegedly reported that her son was with three friends in the living room when the shooting occurred, and she had been upstairs watching TV in her bedroom. When she heard the gunshot, she came downstairs and saw one of the friends performing CPR on Jarrett. The others had run off.
The friend allegedly told detectives that Maldonado was sitting on the couch when he initially racked the handgun, pointed it and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire.
Maldonado racked the gun again after the friend reportedly told him not to mess around and to be cautious in case there was a bullet in the chamber. But Maldonado pointed the gun again and pulled the trigger, striking Jarrett, who was standing in front of him.
A police investigation pointed to the shooting being a murder rather than an accident, and they identified Maldonado as a suspect before he surrendered at the Lakewood Police Department the day after it occurred. Prosecutors then charged him with first-degree murder.
The murder charge was amended to manslaughter before Maldonado pleaded guilty Nov. 1. Deputy prosecuting attorney Maureen Goodman wrote in a court filing that the state believed the change reflected the defendant’s conduct in the shooting.
Goodman said in court Friday that the victim’s mother was notified of the hearing and decided not to attend. Hershman also said that Jarrett’s family had reached out to Maldonado “in a compassionate fashion.”
“I don’t know how people summon that kind of strength,” Hershman said.
Maldonado, who has been out of custody on electronic home monitoring since July 18, 2023, sat quietly throughout the hearing in a gray dress shirt and tie. Friends who attended the hearing in support of him filled nearly two rows in the gallery behind him.
When it was his turn to speak, Maldonado said he couldn’t express how sorry he was for what happened. He said he thinks about it often, and he can’t really change anything.
“I know I’m going to do better,” he said.
