How did two teens get away with being arrested and charged with a crime 30 times, yet still be free?
That’s the question Anthony Brooks’ family is asking.
Brooks was gunned down Nov. 10 outside a Shell gas station along Campbellton Road.
Now, his aunt Tawanna Brooks must leave a 1 p.m. funeral for Anthony Brooks to attend a 2:30 p.m. court appearance Thursday for Charlie and Isaac McDaniel, the teenage brothers arrested in connection with the shooting.
According to witnesses, Anthony Brooks was at the gas station looking to do an odd job when he confronted the McDaniel brothers about recent carjackings in the neighborhood.
Police released few details at the news conference Monday on what led to the confrontation, only calling it a “verbal disagreement,” but said Anthony Brooks did not have any interaction with the brothers before the day of the shooting.
The teens have a checkered past.
According to Atlanta police, they are members of a gang, were not enrolled in school and have had more than 100 interactions with police.
At a news conference earlier this week, Maj. Todd Coyt said the brothers had been arrested and charged 30 times, something Anthony Brooks’ family can’t grasp.
“When I heard that I was sickened all over again,” Tawanna Brooks told Channel 2 Action News. “I don’t understand how anybody could have 30 charges, be arrested 30 times, and still be able to walk the streets. I don’t care how old they were.”
The teens’ mother arranged for them to turn themselves into their church, something Tawanna Brooks called “a show.”
“Taking them to church to turn themselves in?” she said. “They should’ve been in church Sunday morning, that Sunday, the previous Sunday, the Sunday before that. They obviously were not.”
Cobb County officials told Channel 2 the teens faced entering auto and gang-related charges earlier this year, but a juvenile judge determined they were incompetent to stand trial.
Age aside, Tawanna Brooks faults the teens, who haven’t formally been charged with murder, with her nephew’s death.
“I am not holding the parents responsible,” she said. “I am not holding the judicial system responsible. Nobody put those guns in those boys’ hands and told them to shoot my nephew. They’re 100 percent responsible for what they did.”
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