A Florida teenager was charged with second-degree murder a year after he allegedly shot and killed another teenager who attempted to buy a gun from him.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of the 14-year-old boy, who is not being named here due to his age, in a Facebook post on Dec. 4 in connection to the shooting death of 19-year-old Griffin Smith on Dec. 2, 2023. Smith was found with a bullet wound in his white pickup truck, which had crashed near a community center in Ocala, Florida. He was brought to the hospital where he died from his injuries.
Police learned that Smith was set to meet with the suspect, who was 13 years old at the time, to buy a gun from him earlier that afternoon. At some point, the deal went awry and the younger teenager allegedly fired at Smith’s vehicle as he tried to get away. The gun that Smith was intending to buy was found inside the vehicle. It’s not clear that the gun found in the car was the one that fired the fatal shot.
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