15-Year-Old Steals 12-Year-Old's Bike At Gunpoint

A 15-year-old already on house arrest for a shooting incident is accused of robbing a 12-year-old boy at gunpoint and stealing his bicycle and cash from his pockets, St. Petersburg Police said Friday.

The 12-year-old boy was riding his bicycle in the Citrus Grove Apartment Complex, 711 15th St. S., around 9 p.m. Wednesday when he was approached by the teen suspect, police said.

The 15-year-old demanded the bicycle, and when the boy refused, the teen pulled out a handgun from his waistband and pointed it at him, according to police spokesperson Mike Puetz.

"The suspect started poking the victim in the chest with the barrel of the gun and then pushed the victim off the bike onto the ground," Puetz wrote in an email to media. The teen then took a small amount of cash from the boy's pockets and rode away on the bike.

The boy did not initially report the incident "out of fear of retaliation by the suspect," Puetz said, but the victim's father later found out about the incident from a witness and brought his son to the police station.

The suspect, identified as Latellis V. Everett, was arrested at his home Thursday afternoon. When taken to the station to be interviewed by detectives, Everett "became combative and had to be restrained," Puetz said.

As officers tried to place him in a police cruiser, one of them suffered a cut above his left eye that required stitches. Everett also broke out one of the passenger windows in the cruiser.

Everett will be charged as an adult with armed robbery, resisting an officer with violence, criminal mischief and violation of probation stemming from his involvement in an April 27 shooting incident.

In that incident, Everett and another 15-year-old were accused of firing off a handgun from a car as they drove past a large outdoor birthday party in the 3600 block of Third Avenue South. Everett and the other teen in the car were wounded by retaliatory gunfire, and a 12-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl at the party were also wounded, police said.

Everett was sentenced to home detention in that case.

Detectives are still looking for the handgun used in this week's robbery and ask anyone with information to contact the St. Petersburg Police at the
non-emergency number at 727-893-7780, Text-A-Tip to 727-420-8911 or leave a confidential tip at 727-892-5000.