Richmond, Virginia, was recently the scene of a horrific, tragic murder, with a 14-year-old boy found lying in the road with a gunshot wound on Sunday, March 31. After weeks of searching the Richmond police have finally found and arrested a suspect, an 18-year-old from Richmond. He has been charged with attempted robbery resulting in serious injury or death and police say other charges are pending.
The nightmarish incident began at slightly before 11 pm on March 31, when Richmond police officers were called to, WTVR reports, the 1400 block of Front Street, an area in Richmond’s North Highland Park neighborhood. The 911 caller reported a shooting, which appears to have been the shooting that led to the death of the 14-year-old boy.
Police, once they arrived at the scene of the shooting, found the wounded juvenile in the middle of the street. Those responding officers said, WTVR reports, “Officers located a juvenile male, 14, down and unresponsive in the roadway with an apparent gunshot wound.” The wounded victim was transported to the hospital, but died of his injuries.
According to WTVR, Richmond Public Schools confirmed that the 14-year-old boy was a student at the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. His alleged murderer is an 18-year-old from Richmond named Joseph Treakle.
The murdered teen’s aunt, speaking to the media about the situation, said, “When we arrived on the scene, he was my nephew Daquan, was laid out straight on his back with a gunshot to the head.” She added, “They really took a part of us when they took him. My nephew was on the ground, laying on the ground, and they said he turned around, pointed the gun at them… to turn back around and put the gun at my nephew’s head and shot him.”
Describing the murdered teen, she said he was “Always cracking jokes, fun to be around, made you laugh, his laugh. He laughs just like his mom with this weird, wheezy, raspy laugh and he was just a ball of energy. He really was a fun person to be around.”
Commenting on the 14-year-old’s death, the Mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney, said that this sad incident was the first fatal shooting of a teenager in Richmond in 2024. He also called for an end to such violence, saying that policy must be implemented that cracks down on crime and addresses the root issues leading to such crime. Mayor Stoney said, “We believe a both-end approach and that is investing in being tough on crime and being tough on the root causes of crime as well.”
Explaining how he thought the alleged root causes of such crime could be wrangled under control, he spoke about the city’s Positive Youth Development Fund. He said, “That means investing in programs so we can wrap our arms around our kids. I think they are very important for a child’s development as well, so you’ll continue to see us make those investments.” It remains to be seen if such a strategy proves at all effective.
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