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As school mourns, suspect arrested

Police say the teen opened fire on a crowd in a McDonald's parking lot, killing one and wounding three.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER,
Published November 19, 2005

TAMPA - At age 3, he shot his half-brother in the chest.

Otis Lorenzo Neal found a .32-caliber revolver in a couch at his mother's Tampa apartment and fired at Melvin Hamilton, 16 months old. The baby survived. Authorities ruled it an accident.

In the years that followed, Neal, now 18, got into trouble with a gun at least four more times, criminal records show.

Now, Hillsborough sheriff's detectives have charged Neal in the shooting that killed a King High School senior and injured three others near campus Thursday.

Authorities arrested Neal early Friday after six witnesses and one victim identified him as the shooter, said sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter. With help from a tipster, investigators found Neal at Kenneth Court Apartments in east Tampa.

"We are confident he is the lone gunman," Maj. Robert Shrader said of Neal, a former Middleton High School student with a history of arrests dating back to age 9.

Investigators do not believe Neal was part of a gang, or that the shooting was gang-related, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.

Neal was booked into the county jail at 3:21 a.m. He is charged with the second-degree murder of 17-year-old Dalshon Walton, a popular King High senior. Walton's mother, Talisha Eldridge, called her eldest son a class clown with a magnetic personality.

"A good boy," Eldridge said.

Neal also is charged with three counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, one count for each surviving victim: Antonio Harris, 16; Damian Lamar Bowie, 15; and Alexander McKinnie, 19.

The three were treated at local hospitals for their injuries, which are not life-threatening.

Shrader said investigators have not recovered the gun that sent dozens of people, many of them King High students, scrambling for cover outside the McDonald's at Sligh Avenue and 56th Street.

They are still trying to sort out the recollections of witnesses.

"There is a ton of information on the street right now, not all of it reliable," said Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee. "There were a lot of inconsistent statements."

Authorities know the incident began when a fistfight, or several fights, erupted among dozens of teenagers gathered at the McDonald's, a popular after-school hangout.

In the parking lot was a white van, witnesses said. Some said it had six or seven people inside.

Neal got out with a gun and fired one shot into the air, then aimed several shots into the crowd, investigators said.

"There was panic, pandemonium, people trying to get out of the way," Shrader said.

Someone in the crowd threw a bicycle at the van, breaking the side window. Detectives aren't sure whether Neal fled in the van or on foot. Investigators found the vehicle later at Osborne Avenue and 38th Street in Tampa.

Walton died at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Neal's name first came up when detectives interviewed witnesses shortly after the shooting, Shrader said. Later, a surviving victim also identified him.

Then detectives got a tip that he was hiding at Kenneth Court Apartments in an unidentified acquaintance's home. Shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, authorities went to the apartment. Neal did not resist arrest, Shrader said. He spoke with detectives, but Shrader did not disclose what Neal said.

Neal and his half brother were removed from their mother's custody after the accidental shooting 15 years ago. Mother Dina Varnes had been upstairs in her Terrace Oaks apartment when the 3-year-old found the gun.

On Friday, friends said Neal and his little brother, whom they call "Boobie," are very close.

"He looked out for his brother," said Christopher Holly, 17.

Friends call Neal "the freak" because of his prowess on the football field. Neal encouraged teens to join a neighborhood football league.

"He gathered neighborhoods together, people who were beefing, and he brought them together," said Jahaad Wingfield, 19.

Malik Abdullah, 21, said Neal is "like the 'hood Jesus."

Neal's rap sheet suggests otherwise.

His arrest history dates back to an aggravated battery charge in June 1996. He was 9. The outcome of the case could not be determined Friday, but he was arrested several more times in the following years.

In November 2002, when he was a Middleton student, he was charged with bringing a weapon to campus, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. School district spokesman Stephen Hegarty said Neal withdrew from Middleton that same month. He later attended a charter school and a detention center school.

In 2003, he was convicted in juvenile court of vehicle theft and cocaine possession. In June of this year, he was sentenced to three years' probation for an armed car burglary at the Red Roof Inn in Brandon.

His mother has been convicted over the years of cocaine possession and writing bad checks.

Gee and Shrader said investigators do not believe Neal fired on the crowd Thursday because of any gang rivalries.

"My gut tells me this is more of a type of beef between people that started earlier in the week," Gee said. "Some of the people in the crowd may have been affiliated with gangs, but I don't think this was a gang issue."

The mood at King High on Friday was tense, worried, angry and sad.

Office workers and administrators fielded calls from nervous parents who wanted to make sure the school was safe.

Absences on Friday were double what they typically are, with 509 students out of class.

"We just figured they needed a weekend and a day to let things settle down," said Eileen Poiley of Pebble Creek, whose daughter Jennifer, a sophomore in King's International Baccalaureate program, did not go to school.

Uniformed sheriff's deputies and school security guards hovered at every entrance to the 2,100-student school, ranked by Newsweek earlier this year as one of the top schools in the nation for its prestigious International Baccalaureate program.

Inside the media center, crisis counselors met with about 100 grief-stricken students.

"This was a good kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Roger Sheppard, a psychologist and member of the school district's crisis team.

Many teens said they thought about not coming to school Friday because they feared more violence or retaliation.

Seven patrol cars and two transport vans sat in the McDonald's lot when school let out. Another three patrols were stationed at nearby Nuccio Park.

Sgt. Carlos Collado said the increased presence will continue. "Whatever it takes to keep the community safe, and as long as it takes," Collado said.

King is not the most violent school in Hillsborough. Records show there have been 16 fights so far this school year and three weapons confiscated. In comparison, Blake High School has recorded 30 fights and two weapons.

Outside King High on Friday afternoon, Walton's mother talked to reporters. Talisha Eldridge's eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. Her sister and pastor held her as she dabbed tears and talked about "my baby."

"I just want justice to prevail for my son," said Eldridge, 34, a nursing assistant.

Walton was the eldest of her five children.

Eldridge said Walton was a happy teenager who dreamed of being a rapper.

She and her sister, Latonya Sampson, said Walton was not a gang member. Sheriff's investigators concurred.

But Sampson said she hopes his death will help other kids who might be veering down the wrong path.

"I just hope this is a lesson learned in the neighborhood," Sampson said.

"No more deaths. No more shootings."

[Last modified November 19, 2005, 01:09:04]