The family of a South Florida teenager said they’re outraged after learning that the boy who fatally shot the teen in 2022 will only have to serve two years in jail for the crime.
Mekhi Stevenson was shot and killed at a home in Miami in November 2022.
The 17-year-old high school football star was in a room with some friends and his younger brother when a 15-year-old boy pulled out a semi-automatic gun and began waving it around, according to an arrest affidavit cited by the Miami Herald.
After he removed and reinserted the magazine, Mekhi’s younger brother told the teen the gun was loaded and to “stop playing with the firearm and put it away.”
But, according to the affidavit, the teen “pulled the slide back partially to check and then stated that it wasn’t loaded because it didn’t eject a cartridge.”
He continued to wave the gun around recklessly until he finally pointed it at Stevenson, “and intentionally pulled the trigger once,” police wrote in the affidavit.
Mekhi ran to another room, where he collapsed and died. Witnesses told police they saw several people run from the scene. The shooter was taken into custody at the home.
He was charged with manslaughter, possession of a firearm by a minor, and improper exhibition of a firearm. In Florida, manslaughter is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutors say that even though the teen, now 17, admitted to shooting Stevenson, they and Stevenson’s family expected him to get 12 years in prison for the violent crime, according to CBS News.
But during the sentencing hearing, Stevenson’s mother said the judge told her and her family that the shooter deserves a second chance.
“I just feel like I’m burying Mehki all over again,” Mekhi’s mother, Sonya Stevenson, told CBS News. “That’s how the verdict made me feel. Two years? Two years for a life? Two years? We have waited longer for justice than the time that she gave him. They failed me. They failed me terribly.”
Stevenson said she tried to advise her son to stay away from the teen who shot him after witnessing some concerning behavior. She said she’s crushed by her son’s death.
“I just can’t stop thinking about the way he died,” she said. “I know my child was afraid. I know he was panicking when that bullet hit his chest, and the fact that I couldn’t be there to comfort him is destroying me.”
The teen’s family says Mekhi was a talented football player and dreamed of playing in the NFL like his idol, Lamar Jackson.
Now, they’re launching calls to the juvenile justice system to impose harsher sentences for violent crimes committed by minors.
It’s unclear whether the teen shooter was tried as an adult for the shooting or if he will serve his sentence at a juvenile facility or an adult prison.
An analysis conducted by the Miami Herald revealed that Florida judges have typically given juvenile offenders higher sentences for felony crimes than adult offenders.
From 2008 to 2022, juveniles tried as adults in Florida were sentenced to a little more than three years in prison on average for third-degree felonies, which is longer than the average sentence for adults tried on the same charges. The majority of those crimes include burglary, some types of assault, drug possession, and certain DUI offenses.
For more serious offenses classified as first and second-degree felonies, children and adults received similar sentences.
The Herald’s investigation found that, overall, children tried as adults were sentenced to a little more than five years for a felony charge, while an adult received around three-and-a-half years.
