CLEVELAND — A 14-year-old boy is facing nearly a dozen new charges in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court in a case involving a stolen KIA and police shooting.
The teen was shot by Cleveland police overnight Saturday when police say he tried to run down officers in a stolen KIA Sportage.
“All these different meetings to see what the problem is you know what the problem is and if they don't there’s going to be a lot of parents that are going to be burying their children,” Annamaria Cora said.
Cora says she knows the teen and says it’s high time parents are also held responsible.
Crime scene tape dangles near Cora’s front porch on East 146th Street.
She says she is leaving it there.
“As a remembrance, maybe the kids walking back and forth to school they’ll see it,” Cora said.
Cora remembers the 14-year-old who was shot by police as kind and respectful.
“He’s been over here pulling weeds and helping me in the yard,” Cora said.
She says her heart hurts now.
The teen was in the driveway of a vacant house across the street, where Cora says he used to live, sleeping in a stolen KIA Sportage when cops found him.
“All of a sudden I heard all these gunshots, but you hear gunshots all the time and when it’s that time of morning it seems like it’s closer than what it really is, but this was close and my dogs was going nuts,” Cora said.
Police say the teen was trying to get away, first by ramming a zone car, then backing into a garage before driving toward officers.
One officer opened fire, hitting the teen in the shoulder.
“Just thankfully they didn’t kill him because those policemen, they’re people, they want to go home to their families too,” Cora said.
Police say the KIA Sportage was stolen less than 24 hours earlier from the 4400 Block of St. Clair Avenue.
Last Friday, vice officers were investigating 30 fresh car break-ins in the Midtown neighborhood when they identified two teen suspects, one believed to have a gun.
Then, overnight Saturday, officers spotted the stolen KIA at the vacant house on East 146th. Street, three people got away in the car.
Just over an hour passed when police saw the KIA return to the same driveway.
Minutes later, they found the 14-year-old asleep in the driver’s seat.
“First of all he had no business in nobody’s car. He has no license and he doesn’t have a car and he doesn’t have a job to buy a car,” Cora said.
The 14-year-old was one of the two suspected in the break-ins and had an ankle monitor. Police say the monitors had been cut off.
“It really doesn’t seem like the court system is doing enough to keep them,” Cora said.
News 5 Investigators asked Cora if she thought parents should be held responsible. She replied, yes.
Cora is a straight shooter. She says she knows the boy’s mother is a hard worker.
“Everything sounds good on TV, it looks good on paper, but it’s time to get up off their a** and actually do it,” Cora said.
Her outlook is grim for the future of youth in Cleveland.
“I hate to say it but a lot of them are going to end up looking at the dirt instead of walking on the dirt,” Cora said.
Police say a gun was found inside the stolen KIA. The teen is facing ten charges, including seven counts of felonious assault, one count of improper handling of firearms in a motor vehicle, and two counts of receiving stolen property.
The officer who shot the teen is on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The teen’s juvenile records date back to this past July. He’s racked up a list of accusations, including stealing cars, criminal trespass, fleeing police and gun charges.
On Nov. 25, a motion was filed to put him in secured detention. He was put on home monitoring just days earlier despite the state objecting to it.
Records show he cut off his GPS monitor and went AWOL.
A warrant was out for his arrest.
