A Sunday evening shooting in Indianola has resulted in a serious injury to a 13-year-old.
According to Indianola police investigator Irish Johnson, the unnamed juvenile was shot once in the neck and was airlifted to a Jackson-area hospital.
Police have arrested 24-year-old Damien Ross in connection with the shooting.
Ross reportedly turned himself in on Monday around 3 p.m. and was scheduled to have his initial appearance on Tuesday in front of Judge Gwendolyn Pernell.
According to Johnson, Ross was charged with attempt to commit murder and issued a $500,000 bond.
He said the assault incident was caught on a store's surveillance cameras.
Apparently, the 13-year-old victim and at least four other males, who are all reportedly under the age of 21, pulled up to the store in a SUV, got out and went in.
While they were in the store, Ross and another unidentified person appear, on camera, to pull up in a red vehicle with dark tinted windows, park alongside of the SUV and wait for the subjects to come out of the store.
When the group got into the SUV and attempted to drive off, Ross allegedly got out of his vehicle and opened fire with a 9 mm handgun, and at least one of the bullets hit the juvenile in the neck. Reportedly, no one else in the SUV was injured.
Based on a conversation with the juvenile’s mother on Monday, Johnson said the youth's condition is very serious and that the mother said he had been scheduled for surgery.
A jury just recently acquitted Ross during his retrial on a conviction for the April 2017 murder of Aaron Beamon.
"The system is failing us," Johnson said.
Ross was convicted of first-degree murder, as well as two counts of attempted murder back in November of 2019, but in December of that year, Judge Carol White-Richard set aside the guilty verdict for Ross—of her own accord—and granted him a new trial.
Police at the time expressed their disappointment with that decision and continue to do so today.
An article from The E-T in 2019 stated that, White-Richard granted the new trial for Ross stating, “that after having considered the law and the evidence presented during the trial, she found that the overwhelming weight of the evidence went toward the guilt of (Garrick) Price rather than both defendants and as a result is now granting Ross's motion to sever.”
So, in mid July of this year, he was found not guilty of all charges.
Johnson said, "It is just a revolving door."
He asserted that many of the same youths are committing violent gun crimes over and over.
"They don't have any respect for life or the law," he said, "This was a convenience store where people are going in and out."
Johnson said Ross was initially charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; however, he stated that he would speak to the district attorney before Tuesday’s court appearance about the possibility of upgrading the charge because Ross is a repeat offender.
