BEL AIR, Md. — A report of a shooting just before midnight on Saturday in the 200 block of Center Deen Avenue in Aberdeen led police to a wounded teen in cardiac arrest.
“Our officers responded to the scene and found a 14-year-old male suffering from head trauma,” said Captain Will Reiber of the Aberdeen Police Department, “They rendered all life-saving measures that they could and unfortunately Jai’Den Winchester, a 14-year-old male, passed away.”
Winchester was a freshman football player at Havre de Grace High School, and today, at a bail review hearing for the accused, we learned the alleged gunman was a junior on that team.
RELATED: 16-year-old arrested, charged in Aberdeen murder of 14-year-old
Five people in all were apparently in a car when the victim said something to the alleged assailant and he responded in kind before shooting Winchester.
According to the suspect’s attorney, two people inside that car said the 16-year-old immediately said, “it was an accident. it was an accident.”
“Individuals that knew both the involved, both Jai’Den and the suspect that was charged so there’s familiarity,” said Reiber, “This is a group that knows each other so there’s conversations that are happening, the validity of which has to be determined.”
An attorney for the teen accused of the killing asked for home detention today, but ultimately, the judge denied bail.
The state claims the 16-year-old returned to the car for 10 seconds and searched for the weapon to get rid of it, which prosecutors point out was not consistent with a person who had accidentally shot someone.
The accused teen’s parents and brother left the district courthouse in Bel Air without comment.
