NC teens sentenced in murder of 15-year-old in case highlighting youth gun violence

In courtroom 7B, the casualties of Durham’s violent crime problem were on full display.

A 15-year-old boy was dead after arranging a deal to buy ammunition on Instagram.

Two 17-year-olds who instead plotted to steal his gun were going to prison for at least 14 years.

And relatives and friends mourned another life lost to teens shooting firearms on Durham’s streets.

Ian Wells, 15, died in April 2021 in circumstances that highlight gun-violence trends beyond the Bull City.

From 2019 to 2021 there was a 19% increase in children 15 and under being charged with nonviolent firearm offenses, according to North Carolina’s Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Meanwhile, firearm deaths of children and teens 17 and under more than doubled between 2019 and 2020 to 109.

Deaths in this age group continued to climb in 2021, according to the state’s Child Fatality Task Force’s data, some of which is preliminary. The 116 firearm deaths last year included more than 20 suicides.

Non-fatal firearm injuries, which includes assault and self-inflicted wounds, increased by 120% to 194 from 2016 to 2020, according to the task force, which advocates for safe gun storage to prevent such injuries and deaths.

Other violent cases involving teens

Wells’ case concluded this week after the second of two teens charged with his murder, who were 15 and 16 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty Monday.

But they were not the only young people in Durham County court facing murder charges that day.

Also on the docket was a 17-year-old accused of fatally shooting a man and injuring another teen last April while on a rented scooter. The shooting may have been part of a road rage incident on Alston Avenue, according to statements in court.

Another 17-year-old in court was charged with fatally shooting a 19-year-old McDonald’s employee in June as the worker was driving on U.S. 15-501 to pick up cups from another restaurant. Discussions in court didn’t reveal a motive for the shooting.

Retired FBI investigator Maria Jocys, who investigated gangs and gun violence in Durham for years, doesn’t know exactly why more younger teens are committing gun crimes, but she cited young people taunting each other on social media and being exposed to more gunfire and violent crime in recent years.

“It is what they have grown up seeing,” she said.

Probing gun violence

This reporting is part of ongoing coverage by The News & Observer about gun violence, its impact on families and communities and relevant public policy in the Triangle and beyond.

In addition, some gangs are recruiting younger members, she said, because they are less likely face long sentences if they get caught.

In recent years O’Block, one of Durham’s homegrown gangs, had “O’Block babies,” and juveniles in the gang would identify themselves as such in their Instagram profile names, Jocys said.

Longtime Durham defense attorney Daniel Meier, agreed.

Clients have told him older gang members have directed them to commit crimes to earn rank in the organization, saying they’d face less serious consequences if arrested than an adult with a history of felony convictions would face.

Durham needs more recreational opportunities in the city, Jocys said.

‘Get the gun’

Wells, a freshman at Person High, had chubby cheeks that inspired nicknames like Baby and Chipmunk.

In April 2020 he arranged to buy a magazine, ammunition for a 9 mm handgun, from a then 16-year-old, Joshua Cates, on Instagram, according to court documents.

Cates, however, planned to walk away from the 12:30 a.m. meeting at the BP Station on Alston Avenue with Wells’ gun, court documents show.

Wells drove to the gas station just off the Durham Freeway in his sister’s minivan. When he got out, multiple teens ran toward the minivan, according to court documents. A witness heard gunshots and one of them yell ‘Get the gun!’

There were at least three gunshots, his sister Imani Taborn told The News & Observer last year. One went into Wells’ arm, one into his chest and the third into the back of the van, said Taborn who wasn’t there.

Wells ran back to the car and drove off, crashing as he made his way down Alston Avenue.

He died at the hospital two hours later.

Ian Wells struggles, as violent crime in Durham rises

The youngest of six children, Wells had been struggling for years, his family said. When he was 6, he was caught in the middle of shootout of people aiming at his brother.

In 2019, Wells shot a girl in the arm with a BB gun, Taborn said. A counselor prescribed weekly out-patient therapy and medicine management, which fell by the wayside, his sister said.

In December 2020, he was in the back seat of a car during a drive-by shooting in Roxboro that left one man dead, his sister said.

In January 2021, Wells faced juvenile charges for stealing a car and was put on house arrest. The family struggled to get him to follow rules, like going to school when they were at work.

Wells’ mother sought an out-of-home placement but was told he didn’t qualify because of his age or because he wasn’t troubled enough.

Meanwhile, the Bull City was becoming more violent.

From 2010 to 2020, the last 10 years of Wells’ life, reported violent crime in Durham rose 47% to 2,412 incidents. Those numbers fell to 2,139 last year, but were still 25% higher than in 2011.

In 2020, the year before Wells was killed, 318 people were shot in Durham, the most since at least 2016, when the police department started compiling the data, The N&O reported. Thirty-three of the people who were shot that year died.

Then Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis said a small number of mostly young people were responsible for many of the shootings.

Other shootings

Cates and co-defendant Daren Toomer, who was 15 at the time, along with two other teens 16 and younger were also connected to three other shootings in the days before Wells’ killing, according to court documents.

On Monday Cates pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon and a related conspiracy charge as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced from 14 to 18 years in prison. Toomer received the same sentence in September.

During Cates’ hearing Monday, eight deputies, twice the typical presence, stood in strategic locations throughout the courtroom. It was a precaution after two of Wells’ relatives attacked Toomer during his plea hearing on Sept. 26, injuring three deputies, according to interviews.

Courtroom brawl

Alex Charns, a longtime Durham attorney who represented Toomer, said he has never seen anything like the attack on his client during the September hearing.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Ingram was outlining the evidence, Charns said, when two men jumped out of the courtroom pews and started pummeling the 100-pound Toomer in the head.

“And they didn’t stop after being pepper sprayed and tasered,” Charns said.

At the time, about three deputies were in the courtroom, according to Durham County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson AnnMarie Breen.

As the ADA outlined the evidence in the case, two men charged Toomer’s table, knocking a deputy in the back of the courtroom down, Breen wrote in an email.

“They then attacked the juvenile, who was seated at the defendant’s table, knocking him to the ground and striking him repeatedly, “ Breen wrote.

The deputies, who called for help, used verbal commands, physical force, pepper spray and a Taser to gain control of the two men as well as others in the courtroom that joined the melee, Breen wrote.

As the deputies restored order, Toomer stood up and looked at Taborn, she said.

“He looked me dead in the face and said ‘Yeah I did it. So what. Do something about it,” Taborn said.

‘All I have are memories’

Two deputies were treated for minor injuries. One was taken to the hospital and released that day.

One of the men who attacked Toomer was also taken to the hospital after he was tased and pepper sprayed, Breen wrote in an email.

He was released later that day and taken to the jail, where he and a second man were held for 30 days for contempt.

On Oct. 5, three men — Ian Wells’ two brothers and one of Toomer’s family members — faced criminal charges that included disorderly conduct and resisting an officer, Breen wrote.

Karen Wells, Ian’s mother, said during the Monday court hearing that she was infuriated, feeling like her son, already dead, had been further dishonored

“Ian has been done a disservice,” Karen Wells said.

At least two of the four linked to the incident have received some type of sentence, but their family can still see them, she said.

“All I have is memories,” she said.

Karen Wells said she hopes Cates takes advantage of the life he will get to live when he gets out of prison.

There were so many other things she thought about saying, Karen Wells said, but added maybe it was best that she didn’t.

“But this” she said standing in the middle of the courtroom and stopped, before going back to her seat.

She and other family members then left the courtroom as one of Ian’s sister-in-laws started to wail, her cries still audible from the hallway past the two sets of double doors.

Her cries continued in the background as Cates’ attorney told the judge his client wasn’t the shooter and didn’t intend for Wells to be killed. He also said Cates had taken various high school courses while in the juvenile detention facility.

‘Senseless’

Karen Wells didn’t return telephone messages from The N&O after the plea hearing.

Taborn, Ian’s sister, said Tuesday that Karen Wells and others felt like court officials were trying to keep them out of the courtroom after the September fight.

“They treated us as if we were some kind of monster,” she said. “Like these people didn’t kill my brother.”

Taborn feels like neither of the teens should have been offered a plea.

“There is no justice for what you all done,” she said. “Fourteen years compared to the rest of our lives is nothing.”

The family also wants more information about what has happened with the other teens that were involved and have unsuccessfully asked to see the video in which Wells was shot. A spokesperson for the DA’s Office said no others have been charged in Wells’ killing.

Ever since Ian Wells died, the family has been “broken beyond repair,” Taborn said.

“We all kind of just isolated into our own corners,” Taborn said. “We don’t gather the way we used to. We don’t talk the way we used to. Everything is different.”

The whole situation was senseless, she said.

Her brother shouldn’t have been trying to buy a ammunition, she said. They shouldn’t have been trying to rob him.

And then they shot him, and never got the gun they were trying to get.

“I feel like these kids don’t care about nobody,” she said. “They don’t care about life. They don’t value life.”

‘Very dangerous.’ Gun sales on Instagram, social media alarm top NC officials