RACINE — Investigators believe suspects mistook a Racine teenager for someone else when he was shot while walking home with his young cousins last month.
Sixteen-year-old Tamarion Moss was shot at least seven times in what prosecutors call "an attempted execution." Security camera caught the shooting near Albert and Marquette Streets. It shows a car pull up and two people get out.
Court records indicate Moss was not the intended target. Investigators believe 18-year-old Xavier Jackson shot Moss in retaliation for the death of Eugene Henderson, a 14-year-old was shot and killed in Racine last month.
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The criminal complaint states, "It is believed JACKSON and the other shooter(s) mistakenly identified T.M. as an NFL gang member and believed he was involved in E.H.'s death. However, T.M. had nothing to do with E.H.'s death and is NOT a gang member."
Moss's grandmother, Cokitha, says her grandson will be at Children's Wisconsin for at least a few more weeks. She said he is getting better. He is sitting up and talking, and he has another surgery Tuesday.
Cokitha Moss says she's relieved a suspect has been caught, but she's also at a loss for words.
"Just to know that people are out here on the streets, young people, with these guns, going around, doing what they do," Cokitha said. "And then when they find out it's not who they intended it to be for, that's when you start worrying."
Court documents state the car shown in the security video was stolen. The records indicate Jackson crashed the car nearly a week after the shooting in Zion, Illinois, where he was caught.
Jackson is being held on a $250,000 cash bond in Racine County. He's due back in court next week.
In the meantime, Cokitha has a message.
"What's the sense of it? If I get a gun, and you get a gun, I go and retaliate, it doesn't make the situation better. It makes it worse."
