The 17-year-old in gym shorts approached his target. The 28-year-old Lansing man was waiting for his daughter at her school-bus stop at REO Road and Ballard Street.
It was May 29, and a nice day. Temperatures would reach 79 degrees. It was partly cloudy, fairly gusty.
The teen had two friends nearby - dropped off by a third friend in a van after they scouted their target. They knew what Marvell Weaver was going to do. They had discussed it.
Weaver approached his victim from behind, a black KL-800 Type Stun Gun in his pocket. It is capable of generating 1.8 million volts.
He passed him and turned back, pressed the stun gun into the victim’s side. Again and again, and … nothing. It had fired earlier when testing it, he would later tell police.
“The button was like stuck down … or something. I don’t know what caused it not to work,” according to a transcript of Weaver’s statement.
‘Please don’t kill me’
The intended victim moved quickly, pulling his stainless steel .40-caliber Smith and Wesson. It had a full 10-bullet magazine, and was worth about $900 police estimated.
He shot Weaver in his buttocks as the teen turned to flee... Weaver ran, sat down across the street, his leg going numb, bleeding. Pleading.
“‘I’m sorry, please don’t kill me, I don’t know why I did that, I’m high you know, I just wanna go home,’” the teen told the man who had just shot him.
I'm not sure about the legality of shooting him in the ass as he tried to flee, but I do think it was the right thing to do.
The teen was hospitalized with a non-life threatening injury. At first, Weaver said he merely removed the stun gun from his pocket to look at it and the man shot him. He later confessed to the attack, records show.
Police asked for an attempted robbery warrant. The prosecutor authorized a lesser charge, illegal possession of a stun gun, a maximum two-year felony. A plea-bargain conference was scheduled for last Wednesday, but postponed until Sept. 4. The teen is free on bond.
He should be in jail.
Whatever the outcome, the teen has written a letter apologizing to his victim.
“I don’t blame you for what you did. You were only trying to protect yourself. I only wish I could go back to change it to were (sic) I never did it.”
“Im very sorry,” he closes at the letter’s end.
The hand-scrawled note is written on one-page of lined binder paper. The printed apology is at least five times larger than the rest of the words.
It's just remotely possible that this scared him enough that he won't do anything like it again.
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