GUILTY FL - Dalshon Walton, 17, shot to death, Tampa, 17 Nov 2005

Tampa high school senior shot dead amid after-school fistfights in parking lot, police say

TAMPA, Fla. — A high school senior was shot to death outside a fast-food restaurant after fistfights broke out among youths who had gathered there after school, authorities said. An 18-year-old man was arrested today.

Some witnesses suggested the shooting Thursday was gang-related, but authorities characterized it more as a territorial dispute.

The shots were fired by a man who had gotten out of a white van after several fistfights between groups of youths across from King High School in a crowded McDonald's parking lot. The shooter then sped off, deputies said.

Witnesses said the slain youth, 17-year-old Dalshon Walton, was shot as he started to walk away from the crowd. Investigators were trying to determine if he had been involved in the dispute or just got in the way.

"All this shouldn't have gone down. It was petty. It was stupid," friend Alejo Vickers, 19, told the St. Petersburg Times.

Walton died at a hospital, the sheriff's office said. Three people wounded, ages 15, 16 and 19, were treated at hospitals and released.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3471088

PrayersForMaura said:

Some witnesses suggested the shooting Thursday was gang-related, but authorities characterized it more as a territorial dispute.

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Territorial dispute? what the heck is going on with teens today? - this isn't the west bank or gaza strip.. this is Tampa :doh:

It's such a stupid stupid waste

From January 2007:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/31/Hillsborough/Plea_deal_in_student_.shtml

Otis Lorenzo Neal, 20, pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Dalshon outside a McDonald's near King High School. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, 10 of which he must serve. Seven years of probation will follow.

The deal prosecutors offered also included Neal pleading guilty to three counts of attempted second-degree murder in the shooting that wounded three other teens...

It was a frenzied scene, where witnesses said Neal got out of a van and fired into a crowd after school had let out. Dalshon, a King High senior his friends called Elmo because of his cartoonish demeanor and good nature, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, witnesses and police said.

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