SAD: Teen Accomplice In Armed Robbery Charged With Capital Murder - Birmingham, AL
Birmingham teen murder suspect in wrong place, mother says - al.com
Quote:
The adoptive mother of a teen charged with capital murder of an acquaintance who was killed while the two were robbing someone Sunday said her son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Malik Hameed, 17, is remorseful over his involvement in a weekend robbery that left his accomplice, a family friend, dead, said his mother, Hamidah Hameed, 56.
"All he's been doing is crying and asking me to come get him," Hamidah Hameed said. "He keeps saying, `Mama, I'm sorry.' I told him he had a chance to think and make a different choice, but he didn't think. He just asked me to hug him and hold him."
Police say Malik Hameed and Patrick Cortez Levert, 26, were shot Sunday in the 100 block of Cotton Avenue Southwest while trying to rob a 39-year-old man at gunpoint.
The man pulled a gun and shot both, police said.
Levert, found on the sidewalk, was taken to UAB Hospital, where he died. Someone drove Hameed to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, where he was treated and later taken into police custody.
Though Hameed didn't shoot Levert, he is charged with capital murder because he was a conspirator in a crime that resulted in death, police said.
Hamidah Hameed said witnesses have told family members her son wasn't armed.
"We haven't been able to verify whether he was or wasn't armed," said Birmingham homicide Sgt. Scott Thurmond. "But from talking to him, he knew what was going on prior to getting there. He knew the deal."
Hamidah Hameed said she became Malik Hameed's foster mother when he was 12, after his biological mother lost parental rights of her four children. Three years later, Hamidah Hameed formally adopted him, but said both she and he had an ongoing relationship with his biological mother.
She said Malik Hameed suffered a head injury when he was younger, and also is learning disabled. He and his biological mother were going to school together to get their GEDs, Hamidah Hameed said.
Her son spent Thanksgiving with his biological mother, where he met Levert, a convicted robber who again was charged with robbery in November.
Levert had taken Malik Hameed to work with him, and then on the holdup Sunday.
"Malik was just going along with him," Hamidah Hameed said. "He don't have any street sense. I babied him."
Hamidah Hameed said her adopted son hasn't been in any previous trouble, nor were any of her biological children who are all now grown.
"He was going to church with his biological mother and going to mosque with me," she said. "It's not like we didn't try to teach him about God."
Dealing with crime, and the law, is new to her. The family is trying to raise money for a lawyer.
"I don't know where to start," she said. "We're here for him but we're not rich people. All we can do is pray."
I feel sorry for the family of those involved, and for the 17 y/o if he truly is disabled and not able to make smart decisions as hinted at by his adoptive mother.
