Royal Palm student faces adult charges in shooting
ROYAL PALM BEACH — A Royal Palm Beach student is being charged with three felony counts after he allegedly shot a classmate following a dispute on a school bus, according to an arrest report.
Artnell Shemar Brown turned 18 on Nov. 16 but is accused of shooting the classmate on Oct. 26 when he was 17. The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office chose to file adult charges against Brown, who is being held in the Palm Beach County Jail on $150,000 bail.
Brown is charged with aggravated battery with a firearm, carrying ON FACEBOOK
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a concealed weapon and possession of a weapon on school property.
The shooting was one of three gun-related cases involving county schools from Oct. 10 to Nov. 1.
According to an arrest report, Brown got into a dispute with the 14-year-old victim after they “mistakenly” bumped against each other on a school bus. Brown
then asked the boy if he had a “problem.”
The argument continued after the boys stepped off the bus at Celebration Boulevard and Jog Road.
Brown then p ulled a handgun from his waistband, pointed it at the boy and “cocked it,” the report said. Fearing for his life, the victim reached for the gun. During the struggle, the gun went off and the victim was shot in the right foot.
Brown told West Palm Beach police that he intended only to “scare” the boy by pistol-whipping him and that the gun “accidentally” went off. Brown demonstrated to police how he wanted to pistol-whip the boy but “his demonstration didn’t corrob- orate his said intentions,” the report said.
Brown told po l ice he brought the gun to school for personal protection. He said he hid the gun in a gar- bage can at a park near Royal Palm Beach High School, then retrieved it at the end of the school day.
The firearm — a Kel-Tec PF9 — was tossed into bushes by Brown, the report said, and later found by police wrapped in his sweatshirt. The report does not indicate who owned the gun.
An inspection of the fire- arm by police revealed one spent shell casing that failed to eject.
“It is reasonable to say that Artnell Brown may have discharged this firearm a second time,” the report said.
The victim, who is a ninthgrade student, was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, but no fur- ther details were released regarding his condition.
According to the report, Brown was not riding on his assigned school bus. Instead he took the school bus where the argument with the victim began because he wanted to visit a friend in the Briar Bay community near where the bus stopped.
During a court appearance Tuesday morning, Brown was ordered not to have any contact with Royal Palm Beach High School, the victim or county school buses.
Once Brown posts bond, he will be placed on in-house arrest and will wear a GPS monitor. He is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 5.
The shooting was the sec- ond of three gun-related cases between Oct. 10 and Nov. 1 in county schools.
A student at Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens was arrested Oct. 10 on a school bus for allegedly having a gun. The 16-year-old faces a charge of a juvenile in possession of a weapon.
A 12-year-old Jeaga Middle School student was arrested Nov. 1 after students found a pistol magazine loaded with bullets under his desk in a classroom. The school’s principal then found a semi-automatic handgun that the boy had stashed in a bathroom at the school, which is on Jog Road west of Florida’s Turnpike and north of Okeechobee Boulevard in suburban West Palm Beach.
District officials were not available for comment Tuesday, although they have previously declined to answer questions about the incidents, saying its policy was not to discuss security incidents on its campuses.
The boy who brought the gun to Jeaga is accused of possessing a gun on school property and was ordered by a juvenile court judge Nov. 2 to remain on home arrest.
The Post is not naming either the Dwyer or Jeaga students because they have not been charged as adults.