Judge expresses disgust at 5-yo boy’s shooting
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MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — Expressing disgust over the nature of the allegations, a judge on Tuesday denied bail for a man accused of critically wounding a 5-year-old boy in a hail of gunfire on Saturday.
Mobile County District Judge Spiro Cheriogotis noted that bail was “academic,” since Reginald Paul Pryor has a hold on him for a probation revocation. He set the case for arraignment on Monday.
“I’m so sick of watching grandparents and mothers and children being shot over these disputes,” he said.
Cheriogotis added, “It makes this judge wonder just what is going on in this world.”
Pryor, 21, stands charged with four counts of attempted murder and two counts of firing into an occupied vehicle. The boy, Demarcus Austin Jr., was inside the vehicle with his father and two other men on Saturday outside of the father’s home on Farnell Drive.
Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste initially said Pryor fired 14 shots at the car. But a detective in court on Tuesday pegged the number at 15.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Wright said Demarcus was sitting in the rear passenger seat when bullets hit his head and leg. He remains in critical condition.
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich told FOX10 News on Monday that the shooting was retaliatory. Wright decline to elaborate on that.
“The child was not the intended victim, but I ‘m not going to get into anything further as to who was the intended victim in regards to any of this at this time,” she said.
Wright asked the judge to deny bail “based on the (probation) hold and the violent nature of the case.”
The probation stems from a 2017 case in which prosecutors alleged that Pryor fired into a house and injured a teenage girl. Prosecutors allowed him to plead to the lesser charge of reckless endangerment after, Rich said, the victim failed to testify. A judge sentenced him to a one-year suspended sentence and two years’ probation.
In 2019, police again arrested Pryor, accusing him of injuring a woman after firing shots into a vehicle. But a grand jury determined there was insufficient evidence to indict.
Wright was at a loss Tuesday to explain how someone could shoot into a car with a young child.
“Certainly, it’s a very tragic situation that we have a 5-year-old in critical condition at this time based on this horrible, horrible crime,” she said.
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