Detroit man charged with attempted murder of 16-year-old in Indiana
GARRETT, Ind. (WISH) — A 21-year-old Detroit man was charged Tuesday with the attempted murder of a 16-year-old boy, the Indiana State Police say.
State police did not identify the teenager who was shot. He was last reported to be stable upon being taken to Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne.
Kerry Jamar Hawkins Jr. was formally charged Tuesday morning in DeKalb Superior Court 2, online court records show.
Police were called about 11:45 p.m. Monday to East Edgewater Drive North in the North Pointe Crossing mobile home community. That’s southeast of the intersection of state roads 9 and 327 in the city of Garrett.
State police did not say what led to the shooting.
Court documents say witnesses saw the shooting near a pond. Surveillance video captured the teen and Hawkins near a pond.
The gun was not found after the shooting, but investigators found .45 caliber rounds. Some rounds had been fired, and others that had not, court document say.
Hawkins told investigators he was a “diagnosed schizophrenic” who “blacks out,” court documents say. He’d been staying in Garrett after being brought from Detroit over the weekend. He remembered seeing a gun but not the shooting.
From the hospital, the teen told police Hawkins shot him “from 5 feet away,” court documents say.
Hawkins was in the DeKalb County Jail in Auburn on a $200,000 cash bond, state police say. The jail could not immediately provide a jail booking photo of Hawkins on Tuesday afternoon.
Garrett is a city of nearly 6,600 residents located about 7 miles north of Fort Wayne in northern Indiana.
Mental health resources
- Be Well Indiana
- Indiana Suicide Prevention
- Indiana Department of Child Services’ Children’s Mental Health Initiative
- National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988 or 800-273-8255
- More resources