(ProsperNews.net) – A 13-year-old boy was shot dead when he attempted to carjack an armed federal security officer. The officer was sitting in his car in Washington, DC, waiting for the start of his shift, when two young males approached and demanded he give them the car. They ordered him out of his vehicle, and the officer describes how one of the males put his hand to his waist “as if he had a handgun.”
While exiting the vehicle, the security officer pulled his weapon and shot one of the carjackers. Both teens fled the scene, but one soon fell with a gunshot to his chest. First responders took the boy to a local hospital, but he died shortly afterward. Police are offering a $10,000 reward for help in capturing his accomplice.
Local media have identified the dead teenager as Vernard Toney Jr., a student at Kelly Miller Middle School in the northeast of the city. School officials released a statement describing Toney as possessing a “natural comedic ability” and who loved making people laugh. Mayor Muriel Bowser described the death as a tragedy.
The incident is not the first involving Vernard Toney – he was arrested in May and linked to a series of several carjackings. He made media headlines as a 12-year-old suspected carjacker who was thought to be involved in nine incidents in quick succession. Toney’s name was not released at the time, but media sources speculate that he was the infamous child thief menacing DC streets earlier this year.
For example, in April, a woman was robbed at gunpoint by a boy who took off with her car. The same child was suspected in a robbery just one day later when a vehicle was also stolen. Toney is suspected of a staggering six more armed robberies, or attempted robberies, in Washington in April alone.
More than 800 carjacking crimes have been reported in the nation’s capital this year, compared to 387 over the same period last year.
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