TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A 15-year-old Tallahassee teen accused of shooting 11 people outside Florida A&M University’s Bragg Stadium on Saturday night is now being prosecuted as an adult.
Anthony Rivers III was transferred to adult court on Thursday and faces 11 charges of second-degree attempted murder stemming from the Perry Street shootings.
Rivers is being held in jail as the case moves through the adult court system. His defense attorney, Mutaqee Akbar, said the process for a juvenile defendant begins with an initial booking and detention decision before prosecutors decide whether to pursue adult charges.
“They get booked into the juvenile assessment center, they make a determination whether or not they are going to be held at the detention center, and then from there the State attorney’s office makes a decision on weather they are going to try that person as an adult. Which legally is going to be called whether they are direct filed,” Akbar said.
As of Thursday night, 11 people were recovering from injuries, including six with gunshot wounds.
Efforts to reach Rivers’ family for comment were unsuccessful. Attempts were made through multiple methods, including visiting an address connected to the family, but no one answered the door. A phone number for the family was out of order.
Akbar said Rivers will go through the same general court steps as adult defendants.
“And when we say the adult system, technically it goes through the same process that most adults go through as far as having a first appearance, getting arraigned, having a trial, and then the judge making a decision in a normal circuit court as opposed to the juvenile with the league system,” Akbar said.
Akbar also said juveniles held in custody are kept separate from adult inmates.
“In the Leon County detention facility but in a different part of the jail than anybody that’s over eighteen. They have to keep them separated, they are not in the same cell, or in the same pod. They don’t associate with anybody that’s an adult,” Akbar said.
Rivers is scheduled to appear before a Leon County judge Friday morning.