The sister was holding onto her 11-month-old baby when she was shot in the chest — before the suspect was also shot in the stomach by his 15-year-old brother.
A 23-year-old woman is dead and her two teenage brothers are facing charges after an alleged fight over Christmas gifts ended in gunfire.
According to a press release from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, Abrielle Baldwin, 23, and her two brothers Damarcus Coley, 14, and Darcus Coley, 15, went shopping for gifts together on Christmas Eve with their mother and Abrielle’s sons, 6 years old and 11-months.
They group allegedly got into “a verbal altercation over Christmas gifts,” read the release — while Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri specified the fight was over who was getting more presents. “They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store,” Gualtieri said in a press conference Tuesday.
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The argument, said authorities, continued when they got back to their grandmother’s home.
Damarcus then “took out his 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun and he pointed it at Darcus and told him he was going to shoot him in the head,” said Gualtieri. After Darcus told his brother to leave the house, said the Sheriff, they were separated by another family member, before Abrielle told Damarcus to drop it because “it’s Christmas.”
Gualtieri said Damarcus then began to argue with his sister — who was holding her 11-month-old baby in a carrier in her hand — before calling her a “whore” and other language the Sheriff didn’t feel comfortable repeating. Damarcus, he said, then threatened to shoot both Abrielle and the baby, before shooting her in the chest. Abrielle fell to the ground; the baby was unharmed.
The 15-year-old, Darcus, then allegedly came out of the house with his 45-caliber handgun screaming, “You shot my motherf—king sister” before firing at his brother — who Gaultieri said was then unarmed — in the stomach.
“I’ll say this sarcastically, it’s just normal that all these kids, that’s what you do, right? You carry handguns when you get in a spat with your sibling and you take out your guns and you have a gun battle,” Gualtieri said in the presser.
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Darcus then allegedly fled the scene and tossed his firearm — which hasn’t been recovered — before he was later taken to a “mental health facility due to self-harm statements and will be transferred to the custody of the Pinellas Juvenile Assessment Center once he is released.” Abrielle was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead; Damarcus was also transported to a local hospital and is in stable condition.
“She bled out, it popped both lungs, she couldn’t breathe,” said Gualtieri.
Damarcus has been charged with 1st Degree Murder, Child Abuse, and Delinquent in Possession of a Firearm. Darcus was charged with Attempted 1st Degree Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence. The investigation is ongoing, with Gualtieri saying the DA will decide whether or not to charge Damarcus as an adult for murder.
Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office
“There’s way too many guns out there on the street … everybody’s got a gun these days,” said Gualtieri, who also showed a photo Damarcus allegedly shared to Snapchat within the last few days in which the teen was holding the murder weapon used to kill his sister (above).
Gualtieri said witnesses interviewed told them the two teens always carried firearms, adding, “this is what happens when you got young delinquents that carry guns, they get upset, they don’t know how to handle stuff, so they just take out their guns and start shooting each other and one of them kills his sister.”
The Sheriff said “we need tougher laws to deal with these kids,” who have a criminal record, concluding, “They are not getting the consequences that they should get that keep them from doing it again and again and again.”
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