Teen accused in 15-year-old’s shooting charged as an adult

An 18-year-old is facing an attempted manslaughter charge, accused of shooting and seriously injuring a boy last month at an apartment complex basketball gym in south Orlando, an arrest affidavit shows.

Bryan Keith Rickyle Morrison Jr. was taken into custody Nov. 3, the day after police said he shot 15-year-old Kanaz Blackshear at the Park Central Apartments.

Morrison was 17 at the time of the shooting, but records show he has been charged as an adult. He was ordered last week to be transferred from the Juvenile Detention Center to the Orange County Jail.

Morrison is also facing charges of culpable negligence with personal injury, carrying a concealed firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor and improper exhibition of a firearm.

In an interview with Orlando police, Morrison said he accidentally pulled the trigger of a “revolver style” gun that he grabbed from his backpack while he and Kanaz were playing basketball at the gym inside the apartment complex. The bullet struck Kanaz in the abdomen. Morrison said he ran away because he was “scared,” but told others to call for help, according to the arrest affidavit.

Police said surveillance video from the gym showed Morrison sitting against a wall while Kanaz bounced a basketball around him. Kanaz later appeared to try and take off Morrison’s shoe in a “playful” manner. Morrison then reached into his backpack as Blackshear stood over him and, just as Morrison

lifted his arm toward the boy, Kanaz “immediately [fell] to the floor,” OPD Officer Dalton Ables wrote in the affidavit.

Ables said the video showed Morrison stand up and look at Kanaz before grabbing his backpack and leaving.

In the interview with police, Morrison said he disposed on the gun “somewhere in Park Central Apartments,” Ables wrote.

The owner of a restaurant located inside the gym told police a teenage boy alerted him to the shooting, and he ran to help Kanaz while another person called 911. Kanaz, who Ables wrote was “alert and conscious” when police arrived, was taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in serious condition.