Parents are accused of helping son in beating
The parents of a teen charged in an October shooting outside Carver Vocational Technical High School have been indicted and are accused of helping their son in “settling a schoolyard dispute with violence,” officials say.
The two adults, William Dredden, 40, and Tiffany Harrison, 37, are accused of driving their son to the school, where he allegedly beat a teenager with a firearm.
Officials say his parents also were involved in the assault of the teen outside the school. An indictment alleges Dredden pushed the teen to the ground and struck him “multiple times” with his fist. Harrison, meanwhile, was seen “raising and lowering her right arm and hand, seeming to strike” the teen, “who is out of view on the ground,” it said.
According to officials, the couple’s son then went on to shoot two others standing nearby, one of whom fired a weapon “simultaneously” in return. Dredden and Harrison then drove their son, who was wounded by the gunfire, away from the scene, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said at a Tuesday announcement about the grand jury indictments.
Bates said Tuesday that the city needs parents to be part of the “solution, not the problem.”
“We are laser-focused on holding these parents accountable, to tell the other parents, to make the message clear: If you wish to participate in these types of illegal activities with your children, if you’re not going to be a parent to your children, then we will hold you accountable, as well,” Bates said.
The teen has been charged in adult court, Bates said, with offenses that include attempted murder. His indictment was not provided by the State’s Attorney’s Office. The Baltimore Sun is not naming the teen because he is a minor.
His parents, meanwhile, were each indicted on more than a dozen charges, including first- and second-degree assault, conspiracy to commit first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and accessory after the fact to first-degree attempted murder. Dredden has bee charged additionally with illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of ammunition.
Bates declined to go into specifics about others charged in connection with the altercation. He said five of the six people involved “have some issue of criminality that we’re looking at,” but noted that some may be adjudicated in juvenile court, which has a different process and anonymity for children facing allegations.
“Everybody who should be charged has been charged,” said Bates, adding that his office was focused on “the actions of the parents.”
Two of the three young people who were wounded by gunfire, including the teen whose parents have been criminally charged, were 15 years old at the time of the incident in October; the third was 16 years old.
Charging documents from October reflected that video footage helped Baltimore Police in piecing together the events outside Carver. Both adults were held without bail in Baltimore District Court hearings. An online courts database shows they are scheduled for an arraignment Jan. 2 in Baltimore Circuit Court.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott previously called the accusations against the parents a “despicable example of parents facilitating the escalation of everyday conflict between young people into reckless gun violence endangering innocent lives.” The city is on pace to see fewer homicides and nonfatal shootings in 2023 than in 2022. As of Tuesday morning, there were 250 homicides and 599 nonfatal shootings, compared to 309 homicides and 657 nonfatal shootings at the same time in 2022.