Judge to local teen: ‘You’re lucky that police officer didn’t kill you’

A mother employed by the FBI pleaded Tuesday for the release of her 17-year-old son, accused of firing on a police officer after a Monday afternoon Miamisburg robbery.

Montgomery County Juvenile Court Judge Anthony Capizzi said the teen will remain in custody.

Capizzi said the defendant from Dayton is lucky to be alive after an off-duty Miami Twp. officer wounded him in the right arm when the teen sought to escape what police said was a robbery of a Shell station near the Ohio 725/Interstate 75 interchange, slowing traffic in the area.

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“Ma’am, we’re in agreement that your son’s lucky. We’re blessed he wasn’t killed,” Capizzi told the mother, an FBI employee for two decades who said her son has no criminal record and asked for him to be released on electronic monitoring.

“Under the circumstances before me, the level of the crime is not like he was stealing bicycles or going into a grocery store and stealing Gummy Bears,” the judge said.

Capizzi told the teen “you’re lucky that police officer didn’t kill you.”

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The teen is accused of aggravated robbery with a gun specification. Capizzi said that makes the case eligible to be transferred to adult court, something Assistant Prosecutor Julie Bruns said she plans to pursue, along with additional charges.

Capizzi said he would file a denial on the aggravated robbery charge. The case is set to be back in court Feb. 20.

Miamisburg police records indicate the call came in about 2:20 p.m. Police said as the teen sought to escape, an off-duty Miami Twp. officer wounded him with a shot after the suspect pointed a weapon at the officer.

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The identity of the officer had not been released as of Tuesday afternoon. Miamisburg Police Sgt. Jeff Muncy indicated in an email it doesn’t appear the officer is at fault.

“It pretty straight-forward and there is no wrongdoing suspected on the officer doing the shooting,” according to Muncy.

The defendant is accused of going into the Shell “at a very busy location, during the middle of the day when it was obvious there would be multiple number of people in that place,” Capizzi said.

He said later, “It’s not a simple little case where no one was put at risk. There were potentially hundreds of people put at risk when a person runs out on 725. Think of the location.

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“It was the middle of the day,” Capizzi added. “That’s got to be one of the busiest intersections in the county at that time of day … running out of the store with a handgun, allegedly trying to break into cars when people were in those cars.”

Police also said the defendant sought to flee in a vehicle, but it stalled, and he sought to sought to carjack at least three other vehicles before being confronted by the off-duty officer on Ohio 725.

One area police chief said a cruiser was hit in the exchange of gunfire. Jackson Twp. Police Chief Jon Schade said he and one of his sergeants, Sgt. Mark Bruner, were taking one of their police cruisers to a mechanic shop in Centerville.

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At that point, Schade said, they came upon the suspect attempting to carjack vehicles in the area and alerted dispatchers to the incident, the chief said.

Schade said Bruner was running toward the suspect when the off-duty officer fired his weapon after the suspect pointed his gun at the off-duty officer.

The Shell robbery “was related to several other robberies,” Miamisburg police records show.

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