Terms set for release of teen held in cousin’s gun injury

A Little Rock teenager accused of shooting his 12-year-old cousin while awaiting trial on armed robbery charges can leave home only to go to school, live only with his mother and must wear an ankle monitor, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson ordered Thursday while setting the 16-year-old’s bail at $100,000.

Antonio Dewayne Hampton faces charges of felony theft by receiving and misdemeanor counts of domestic battering and handgun possession over the March 16 incident at the Lennox Drive home of Hampton’s aunt, 50-year-old Noria Day, that left the 12-year-old boy with a bullet wound in his left leg.

According to police reports, other family members were awakened just before 1 a.m. March 16 by the sound of a gunshot, found the injured child and called for an ambulance. Officers reported finding a spent shell casing and a stolen gun in the room.

The boy told investigators that Hampton had taken the gun to the house in a black backpack, put the pistol on his bed and was using his phone to show off the gun when the weapon fired, court filings show.

Hampton’s mother, Ashley Watkins, 33, told the judge that Hampton had been living with his grandmother at the home and had just been visiting her sister’s home. Watkins testified that she’d keep Hampton with her in the future and promised to notify the court if he violated any of his release conditions.

Hampton remained in jail Friday.

At the urging of prosecutors, the judge further ordered that Hampton have no contact with his cousin.

Prosecutors Whitney Ohlhausen and Reese Lancaster asked the judge to set bail high given that Hampton already faces two counts of aggravated robbery over accusations that he, with other teens, carjacked a Bryant man in Little Rock in November and then used the car to ambush a North Little Rock man to rob him in front of his home of an AR-15 that the man had just bought at a gun show.