Chardon Shooter TJ Lane Avoids Death Penalty, Facing Juvenile Charges
Ohio suspect T.J. Lane is being charged as a juvenile in the Chardon High School shooting rampage which took place early Monday morning.
The 17-year-old faces three aggravated murder counts in the deaths of three students Demetrius Hewlin, 16, Daniel Parmertor, 16, and Russell King, Jr., 17, two counts of attempted aggravated murder for allegedly injuring two other students and one count of felonious assault.
Although experts had initially suspected that Lane, who is described as "not well" by Prosecutor David Joyce, would likely be charged as an adult due to the severity of his alleged crimes it now appears that he may not.
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While some critics have expressed outrage at Lane not being charged as an adult, legal experts have maintained that because the alternative school student is still a minor he could not face the death penalty even if prosecutors end up pursuing adult charges.
While prosecutors are still trying to establish Lane's motivation for killing, sources say that the social outcast was heartbroken after learning that King had started dating his ex-girlfriend and simply retaliated although prosecutors are adamant that his victims were randomly selected.
According to several students who were on the scene, Lane stormed into the school's cafeteria carrying a .22-caliber pistol and a knife before firing 10 shots. One Chardon student, Nate Mueller, described the horrifying scene.
"It was terror. Everything had just gone tunnel vision, like, I need to get out of here. You see glances of your friends laying all over the place. There's blood, there's people screaming, everybody's just running in different directions and you're just trying to get out. That's all you can do, get out of the school and not look back even though your friends are back there," Mueller told ABC News.
Lane had reportedly made threats of violence the night before via social media website Twitter, although no one alerted school officials.
"I think he said that he was going to bring a gun to school and I think that everyone just blew it off like he was joking," Chardon student Evan Erasmus told CNN.
