: (FL) Three home invaders shot, one killed 03-27-04

>
> http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/27/Northpinellas/One_suspect_in_home_i.
> shtml
>
> One suspect in home invasion arrested
> He faces charges of attempted murder in one incident and may face murder
> charges in another that police say left an accomplice dead.
> By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
> Published March 27, 2004
>
> LARGO – Josie Golden has raised 23 children over the years, only eight
> of them her own. The rest have been nieces and nephews and grandkids.
>
> Many have turned into good people. One is studying pharmacy at Florida
> A&M right now. Another works at a local nursing home.
>
> But some haven’t turned out so well. And one of the worst, Golden said,
> is Antonio.
>
> He began disobeying her in his early teens. He dropped out of school a
> year or two later. Then he moved out. Since then, Antonio Golden, now
> 22, has had 28 criminal charges lodged against him, many of them for
> drug possession.
>
> On Thursday night, Golden found himself in deeper trouble than ever.
> Largo police booked him into the Pinellas County Jail on attempted
> murder and home-invasion robbery charges. And authorities are
> considering charging him with murder.
>
> Police say Golden was an accomplice of Greg V. Hall, 26, who was shot to
> death during a robbery attempt early Thursday morning. Hall, Golden and
> a 17-year-old, Henry Echols, broke into an apartment at 330 Fourth St.
> SW in search of drugs or money, police said. One of them held a gun.
>
> But whoever was inside heard them breaking in and armed himself. He
> fired several shots, striking Hall in the head, Golden in the arm and
> Echols in the lower back. Hall fell dead to the floor.
>
> Golden and Echols ran away and later went to a local hospital, where
> they were treated and released.
>
> Police say the trio, possibly with a fourth person in tow, also tried to
> commit a home invasion robbery earlier Thursday morning at the Chaparral
> Apartments at 601 Rosery Road.
>
> The robbers, with shirts around their faces, forced their way into the
> apartment, which was occupied by five people. The robbers ordered one of
> the occupants, Breon Wade, 23, to give up his jewelry. When Wade
> refused, he was shot in the leg. The robbers left empty-handed in a
> white Pontiac, the same car that pulled up an hour later at the Fourth
> Street apartment.
>
> The charges filed against Golden on Thursday night were in connection
> with the Chaparral hold-up. He was being held at the Pinellas County
> Jail on Friday in lieu of $50,000 bail.
>
> Police did not arrest Echols, but continue to investigate him, said
> police Chief Lester Aradi.
>
> Authorities are considering whether to charge Golden and Echols with
> murder in connection with Hall’s death. Under Florida law, people
> involved in robberies in which someone dies, even if it’s an accomplice,
> can be charged with murder.
>
> As for the man who shot Hall, he took off running after the shooting and
> eluded police all day Thursday. But Aradi said the man contacted police
> Friday through an attorney.
> Detectives were trying to set up an interview with him, but Aradi wasn’t
> sure if or when that might happen.
>
> Aradi said detectives are trying to determine whether the shooter should
> face charges or if he acted in self-defense. He did not identify the
> shooter.
>
> As for Josie Golden, she was not entirely surprised to hear her grandson
> had been into trouble.
>
> She remembered him as a happy and polite child who ran to her with arms
> outstretched whenever she saw him. He listened to her in his early
> years.
>
> “He usually obeyed me when I told him something to do,” she said. “You
> try to teach them right from wrong.”
>
> But he had problems. Josie Golden said Antonio’s mother used cocaine
> during her pregnancy, which she thinks caused Antonio to be a slow
> learner. He didn’t do well in school.
> “He didn’t learn as good as the rest of the kids would learn,” she said.
>
> Neither Antonio’s mother nor father had much interest in raising him,
> she said.
>
> “I took him to keep him from going to the state. When he got older, he
> got with the rest of them and he wouldn’t listen to me,” said Ms.
> Golden, 64. “I told him to finish school and be something.”
>
> But Antonio dropped out. He moved out at 16. His grandmother didn’t want
> him in the house if he was into trouble.
>
> “I told him, “You can’t stay here and run in and out,’ ” she
> recalled.
>
> Ms. Golden said she last saw him just a few days ago and told him, “Stay
> out of trouble.”
>
> “He’s loved. We love him,” Ms. Golden said.
> “But if he’s wrong, he’s wrong.”
>
> On Friday, she remembered the pudgy little boy who came running to her
> when he was a baby. She wished she could have warned him – again – to
> stay out of trouble. And she wished he would have listened.
>
> “If I could have gotten to him and looked at him and shook my finger at
> him, I know he wouldn’t have did it.”