A man who fatally shot a teen searching for his phone in a gated Florida community will not be criminally charged, according to authorities.<\/p>\n
The shooter, who is in his mid-20s, fatally gunned down the high-school freshman \u2014 identified by family as 15-year-old Heitor Amaral \u2014 in a Tampa apartment complex Sept. 20, said the Tampa Police Department<\/a> and Tampa Bay Times.<\/a><\/p>\n Heitor Amaral was shot and killed while searching for his phone in a Tampa, Florida, apartment complex Sept. 20. Gofundme<\/p>\n Investigators have concluded that they will not be able to charge the unidentified gun-wielding resident based on a \u201ccomprehensive review of the evidence,\u201d police announced Thursday.<\/p>\n Heitor lost his cellphone and teamed up with two of his friends later that day to locate it \u2014 using tracking-technology pings to trace it to the complex on River Willow Place, cops said.<\/p>\n The group of youngsters entered the community through an open gate and parked a truck in the middle of a roadway while looking for the device. <\/p>\n After complying with a request to move the vehicle, they went door-to-door to ask questions and, after receiving no answer at a resident\u2019s door, entered an enclosed back patio and banged on a glass sliding door, police said.<\/p>\n The unidentified resident put on a mask and armed himself to scare off the teens, and as two of them fled, a \u201cphysical altercation\u201d broke out between Amaral and the resident. <\/p>\n The gun-wielding man told investigators that Amaral placed him in a headlock \u2014 spurring him to discharge a single round at the boy in fear for his life. <\/p>\n Amaral was critically injured by the gunshot and died of his injuries at the scene.<\/p>\n An entrance to the Tampa Bay apartment complex where the shooting took place. Google Maps<\/p>\n The teen had just started high school, his mourning family said. Gofundme<\/p>\n The Tampa Police Department presented its probe into the deadly shooting to the state\u2019s attorney\u2019s office, which determined that it would be unable to refute that the man shot the 15-year-old in self-defense.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize the profound pain and concern this tragedy has caused for the family and friends of those involved, and for our entire community,\u201d the department wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n Cops did not release the boy\u2019s name, but his sister, Maysa Amaral, told the Tampa Bay Times that her brother, who had just started his freshman year of high school, was the teen who died. <\/p>\n Yessenia Gonzalez, whose son Julio, 16, was with Amaral on the boys\u2019 crusade to find the missing phone, claimed that there was no physical altercation before the shooting and that the group was all running before the resident opened fire.<\/p>\n \u201cI want the truth out there,\u201d Gonzalez told the outlet. \u201cThere was no fighting. These kids had no weapons.<\/p>\n The boy was the youngest of three children, always did his chores, loved playing video games and enjoyed riding an electric bike his father gave him, shattered kin said. Gofundme<\/p>\n \u201cMy son said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what scared me more, the guy wearing a mask in his own house or the gun,\u2019 \u201d the mother added, stating her son described the shooter as looking like he \u201chad a new toy\u201d and was \u201cjumping up and down\u201d ready to use the firearm.<\/p>\n Gonzalez and Maysa Amaral said her brother, who was short and skinny, was not the type to start a fight.<\/p>\n The heartbroken sister said her brother was the youngest of three children, always did his chores, loved playing video games and enjoyed riding an electric bike his father gave him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was such a good kid,\u201d Maysa Amaral said. \u201cHe absolutely did not deserve what happened to him.\u201d<\/p>\n A GoFundMe she started for Amaral\u2019s funeral costs and funds for his family to hire a lawyer has raised more than $6,000 of its $10,000 goal.<\/p>\n \u201cI want people to know that my brother was a loving and caring kid who had so much more life ahead of him, and now he is resting,\u201d the fundraiser said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who fatally shot a teen searching for his phone in a gated Florida community will not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10822,28,30,29,3858,6889,135,4278],"class_list":["post-418827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-deaths","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-investigations","tag-shootings","tag-tampa","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}