Roanoke teen’s case given to grand jury

The case of a Roanoke teen charged in May with shooting and wounding two people, including a 13-year-old girl, will proceed to a grand jury, a judge has ruled.

De’Sha S. Taylor, 17, faces a charge of unlawful wounding after an April 9 incident at his home in northwest Roanoke. He also faces charges of malicious wounding and use of a firearm following a May 4 shooting at a party in the 600 block of 36th Street Northwest. If indicted, he’ll be tried as an adult.

Authorities typically don’t release the identities of juveniles who have been charged with crimes, but The Roanoke Times obtained Taylor’s name when he was cited as the suspect in a warrant filed in Roanoke Circuit Court.

At Taylor’s preliminary hearing Thursday in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Judge Joseph Clarke said he based his decision on statements Taylor gave to police, and on contradictory testimony by a witness in the case, the teenage girl who was shot. The Roanoke Times is not naming the girl, who is now 14, because she is a juvenile and was appearing in juvenile court.

The girl testified that she’d been one of 50 or 60 people at the party on 36th Street when she was struck in the hip by a bullet.

But the account she gave to defense attorney Hyatt Shirkey — that Taylor fired a gun only after being hit and shot at by others — clashed with her answers to earlier questions from a prosecutor, and conflicted with statements she’d given to police.

“You don’t remember telling the officer the only person shooting was De’Sha?” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney William Braxton asked her.

She said she’d taken cold medication that night, which she said might have impaired her memory.

Another witness called by prosecutors, Roanoke Police Det. C.G. Ramey, testified that the girl told him everything was fine at the party that night “until De’Sha started shouting out ‘Melrose all day,’ and shooting” a gun.

“She said that De’Sha Taylor shot her,” Ramey told Clarke.

He said that he’d also interviewed Taylor about the party, and that Taylor “stated he knew he shouldn’t have went up there [to the party] alone because it was a different gang’s territory.”

Ramey said Taylor told him he’d opened fire at the party after overhearing talk of guns and fighting from other gang members, and testified Taylor had said of the incident: “I can’t even tell you what was going on in my mind. I was so mad.”

In an argument for self-defense, Shirkey suggested that a rival, who was also at the party but who has not been charged in the case, may have fired at Taylor first. Investigators only recovered one caliber of shell casings from the scene, Ramey told Clarke.

Ramey also testified about interviewing Taylor regarding the April 9 shooting of his mother’s boyfriend, Marcus Robertson. He said the teen claimed he intervened in his mother’s defense during a domestic dispute, and at a bond hearing last month prosecutors said Robertson was shot in the groin that night.

“ ‘I heard him in there beating her. I just went off,’ ” Ramey said, quoting Taylor’s interview.

During cross-examination, Ramey acknowledged that Taylor never told police he’d fired a gun at Robertson on purpose.

“As far as you know, the gun went off by accident,” Shirkey said.

In assessing the cases, Clarke referred to the teenage victim’s inconsistent testimony.

“If we only had that, I probably wouldn’t know what to believe,” he said. “But we do have the statements De’Sha made to police.”

Taylor hadn’t mentioned self-defense to investigators, Clarke said, just anger.

Although Taylor had been charged with two counts of malicious wounding and two counts of using a firearm, Clarke reduced the offense in the April 9 incident and dismissed the related gun charge.

Several of Taylor’s friends and relatives, including his mother, were in court Thursday to support him. He has been held since May and made no remarks at the hearing.

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