2 charged in fatal shooting of Federal Way boy
A 14-year-old Tacoma boy was charged Wednesday in King County Juvenile Court with first-degree murder with a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting of a teenage boy in the parking lot of a Federal Way Taco Bell.
Prosecutors have already requested what is known as a “decline hearing” and will ask a judge to transfer the case to King County Superior Court so the 14-year-old can be tried as an adult, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for early March.
Sixteen-year-old Michael Rogers is already facing prosecution as an adult after he was charged in Superior Court on Tuesday with first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in connection with the shooting death of Wesley D. Gennings.
Charging papers filed in Rogers’ case don’t explicitly state who Federal Way police believe pulled the trigger, but they note the 14-year-old was allegedly seated in the back seat of Gennings’ car when Gennings was shot.
Under state law, 16- and 17-year-olds accused of committing serious, violent crimes can automatically be charged as adults, while a judge must decide if younger teens should face prosecution as juveniles or as adults.
The Seattle Times does not typically name juvenile defendants unless they are charged as adults.
Gennings was shot once in the back of the head as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car on Feb. 13. Police and prosecutors say he had picked up the two suspects and drove to the Taco Bell to sell them marijuana, but was robbed and killed instead.
Rogers was arrested at Thomas Jefferson High School last Thursday, allegedly while armed with a .22 caliber handgun, and the 14-year-old turned himself in Sunday.
Less than three weeks before the shooting, Rogers was sentenced to 12 months of community supervision and 48 hours of community service in King County Juvenile Court for a string of robberies he committed last year.
Staff members at the younger teen’s school later spoke with police. Though the school isn’t named in charging documents, police had earlier said he attended Saghalie Middle School in Federal Way.
One teacher told detectives that the day before Rogers’ arrest, the teacher was facilitating a group discussion about Gennings’ death with about 40 students, including the 14-year-old suspect, who “reported he had to use the restroom,” the charges say. After being told he had to wait, the 14-year-old was overheard by another staff member rapping about “smoking someone” — street slang for a fatal shooting — and that “snitches get stitches,” charging papers say.
According to the charges, police also talked to an eighth-grader, who went with the 14-year-old to visit a memorial for Gennings and said that the 14-year-old commented, “Sucks he had to die.”
Documents previously released in the case indicate that Rogers and Gennings had been friends, with Rogers even attending a New Year’s Eve party at Gennings’ house.
In addition to allegedly setting Gennings up to be robbed, Rogers is accused of stealing Gennings’ marijuana, wallet, cellphone and car keys and later destroying Gennings’ phone and ditching it in an unidentified “body of water,” the charges say.
Last spring, the father of a now-16-year-old student at Thomas Jefferson High School was granted a protection order barring Rogers from coming within 500 feet of the boy.
A couple of months earlier, Rogers stole the teen’s $700 iPhone, then a week later showed up with a group of friends at a restaurant where the boy was eating and threatened him, court records show.
Rogers threatened to beat and shoot the teen and his father and had others make additional threats through emails and phone calls, according to the father’s petition for protection.
In May, Rogers attempted to steal a man’s backpack through the open window of a car at the same Taco Bell restaurant where Gennings was killed, according to court records. The man was inside the car with the bag at his feet and when he fought back, Rogers punched him in the face before the car’s driver sped off, the records say.
The victim in that case later told police “he had initially been reluctant to report the matter due to Rogers’ young age” but decided to do so “after learning from other teenagers that Rogers had reportedly been involved in similar robberies in the same neighborhood,” say the court records.
Also in May, Rogers was involved in robbing a middle-school student and her 17-year-old cousin of candy, a cellphone, a wallet and bank cards, then following the girls home and making various threats to beat them up and shoot up their house, court records say.
Those cases were resolved in January when Rogers pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and assault charges and entered into a deferred disposition.
Juveniles granted deferred dispositions can see their convictions vacated and charges dismissed if they abide by conditions set by a judge and stay out of legal trouble for one year.
This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 8:44 PM with the headline "2 charged in fatal shooting of Federal Way boy."