16-year-old girl fatally shot by Columbus man who says he was cleaning gun at time

Bethany Bruner and Dean Narciso, The Columbus Dispatch
·3 min read
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One person was dead Tuesday afternoon after a shooting at the Hawthorn Village Senior Apartment Homes complex at 750 West Rich Street on the west side of Columbus.
One person was dead Tuesday afternoon after a shooting at the Hawthorn Village Senior Apartment Homes complex at 750 West Rich Street on the west side of Columbus.

A young man told Columbus police he was cleaning his gun when the handgun went off, striking a teenage girl in the forehead and killing her early Tuesday afternoon at an apartment complex in Franklinton, according to court documents.

Columbus homicide detectives say 20-year-old Tejuan Stanley shot the girl around 12:45 p.m. inside a first-floor apartment at Hawthorn Village apartment complex on the 700 block of West Rich Street.

Stanley, whose last known address was on South Richardson Avenue in the Hilltop, was with the girl and others in the apartment leased to an older man who was not home when the incident occurred.

Columbus police homicide detectives say a 16-year-old girl was fatally shot early Tuesday afternoon inside this building in the Hawthorn Village apartment complex on the 700 block of West Rich Street. Tejuan Stanley, 20, has been arrested and charged with reckless homicide after telling police he was cleaning a gun when the weapon fired, striking the girl in the head.

Gun violence in Columbus: UNDER FIRE

"This older gentleman was letting her stay there with him for some reason," Sgt. Edward J. Powell III told The Dispatch. The apartment complex has traditionally been for senior housing, according to its website.

Stanley and the others apparently panicked after the shooting and fled, Powell said. After a description of the gunman was sent over police radios, Stanley was identified and arrested at a Central Ohio Transit Authority bus stop at 5505 W. Broad St. Detectives are looking for others who may have witnessed the shooting.

Wednesday morning, Columbus police identified the girl as 16-year-old Elisha Judd, of Columbus.

Judd was a student in the Columbus City Schools system, the district said, however, the district would not identify the school Judd attended.

Police were called at 12:47 p.m. to the apartment complex, where they found Judd with an apparent gunshot wound. Officers performed first aid until Columbus Division of Fire paramedics arrived and continued to try and save her, but they pronounced Judd dead about 10 minutes later.

Stanley has been cooperative, said Powell. According to a probable cause affidavit "He (Stanley) took the gun apart and when he put it back together, he accidentally racked a round into the chamber and did not know he had loaded it."

Elisha Judd, 16, of Columbus, was killed Tuesday afternoon in a shooting at the Hawthorn Village Senior Apartment Homes complex at 750 West Rich Street on the west side of Columbus.
Elisha Judd, 16, of Columbus, was killed Tuesday afternoon in a shooting at the Hawthorn Village Senior Apartment Homes complex at 750 West Rich Street on the west side of Columbus.

Stanley was charged with reckless homicide and taken to the Franklin County jail. Reckless homicide in Ohio is defined as recklessly causing the death of another person and requires that the offender knew that their actions could kill someone, according to the Ohio Revised Code.

Upon conviction, the charge is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Stanley is scheduled to have his first court appearance in Franklin County Municipal Court on Thursday.

Arrest made in man's March shooting death

Columbus police arrested a 21-year-old man Tuesday in connection with the March 11 shooting death of a man on the city's South Side.

Tayvion Taylor, of the South Side, was arrested by a SWAT team on Tuesday without incident. Taylor is charged with murder in connection with the death of 62-year-old Richard Carr on March 11.

Carr was found shot around 3:45 p.m. that day inside his apartment on the 1800 block of Lockbourne Road.

According to court records, "fresh DNA evidence" was found at the scene and matched Taylor when it was tested. Taylor also had walked in at an area hospital with multiple gunshot wounds in the time surrounding the homicide.

Taylor was given a $500,000 bond during his first court appearance in Franklin County Municipal Court on Wednesday morning.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

dnarciso@dispatch

@DeanNarciso

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: One dead after shooting at Franklinton apartment building