District Court Judge Janna Whatley also ordered the boy, a student at A.C. Jones High School, to serve community supervision until his 18th birthday.
Upon release from the boot camp, the boy will be placed on intensive supervision, which includes wearing an electronic ankle monitor so that authorities know his whereabouts at all times.
The boy is accused of one count of theft between $50 and $500, a misdemeanor; one count of aggravated assault causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon, a knife — a second degree felony offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine; and one count of threatening to commit aggravated assault causing bodily injury with a weapon, a state jail felony offense punishable by up to two years in a state jail.
According to police, Patrolman Antonio Gutierrez met with the victim of the assault at police headquarters around 7:45 p.m. Aug. 11.
The officer spoke to a 15-year-old boy who said he was at a skateboard shop in the 300 block of North St. Mary’s Street when a boy in the store grabbed his $50 skateboard and ran out the door.
The victim, the 34-year-old shop owner and several others jumped into the owner’s vehicle and went looking for the suspected thief, according to the police report.
Witnesses said they caught up with the thief at the intersection of North Adams and East Hayes streets and confronted him.
The victim and the shop owner got out of the vehicle and the victim demanded that the thief return the board. But the teenager dropped the board, reached into his back pocket and pulled a knife instead.
When the victim backed away, the thief lunged and cut the boy on the arm.
By that time one of the other passengers in the vehicle, a 14-year-old girl, had identified the assailant.
After the boy was cut, the owner demanded that the thief give up the board. Witnesses said he dropped the board and ran from the scene.
Officers took the suspect into custody the following day, charged him with theft, recklessly causing bodily injury and exhibiting a deadly weapon. The 15-year-old was processed by juvenile authorities and released to the custody of his mother.
The boy, who waived his rights to a trial by jury, confessed to the crimes during a brief hearing before Judge Whatley’s bench on Tuesday.
A juvenile probation officer asked Judge Whatley to sentence the boy to the Texas Youth Commission, essentially a prison for juveniles.
The probation officer said she based her recommendation on the severity of the crime, the grounds that the boy has shown no remorse for stealing the skateboard, stabbing its owner and threatening to stab another person, and the boy’s past criminal history. She said the boy was placed on deferred adjudication in July for stealing an iPod.
Additionally, the boy has been disruptive in school and was sentenced to the school district’s alternative education campus for troublemakers, the probation officer noted.
Furthermore, the boy has a propensity to question authority and needs the supervision only TYC could offer, the probation officer explained.
Assistant District Attorney Tim Cariker said the boy has had repeated disciplinary referrals while in school, including one in which he got into trouble for bringing a pocketknife to campus.
The boy’s attorney, Richard Vestal, asked Whatley to consider placing the teen on an intensive supervision program or at the most order him to attend a boot camp.
The boy also asked Whatley to give him another chance to go straight.
Whatley said she was perplexed by the boy’s actions, and she figured the boy’s parents were equally flabbergasted.
“I can’t imagine what was going through your mind, to take someone else’s property and then stab them,” she told the boy, who stood before her with his chin on his chest.“
Nevertheless, Whatley said she didn’t believe the boy should go to TYC and placed him on regular probation and ordered him to attend boot camp, which could take him up to six months to complete.
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