James to stand trial in school shooting

FLINT (AP) - A man accused of carelessly storing the handgun that authorities say a 6-year-old boy found and used to kill a classmate must stand trial on an involuntary manslaughter charge, a judge ruled yesterday.

The boy and his 8-year-old brother were living with defendant Jamelle James in what prosecutors described as a "flophouse." The boy took James' gun to Buell Elementary School on Feb. 29 and fatally shot 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in their first-grade class, police said. The boy isn't charged.

District Judge John Conover called the boys' living arrangements a "time bomb."

"That's absolutely as negligent as you get. What in the world did the defendant expect to happen" with a loaded gun in the house, Conover said.

"Who feeds them? Who clothes them? Who disciplines them? Who nurtures them? Who says 'I love you' before they go to bed and when they get up? No one," he said.

The boys' mother is facing child neglect charges. She had left her sons at the house because she was evicted from her home about nine days before the shooting.

Defense lawyers pointed to James' roommate and the boy's uncle, Sir Marcus Winfrey, as the owner of the gun.

"So Marcus Winfrey was buying the bullet, buying the holster. Whose gun do you think it was," attorney Bob Polasek said. "I think it's clear whose gun it was."

Winfrey was indicted on a federal weapons charge related to the gun.

The 6-year-old testified Friday that he had seen James playing with the gun, a .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and demonstrated how James twirled it in his hands. The prosecutor had to copy the hand motions for the judge because the boy was too short behind the witness box to be seen.e boy said he had seen the gun and some quarters in a shoebox in James' room - an answer he gave after Genesee County Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Stamos reminded him that was what he had told police.

In his closing argument yesterday, Stamos said James should have known better than to leave the gun where he did.

"An innocent 6-year-old is dead ... and he's the person who's the cause of that," Stamos said, pointing at James. "He left a gun in a shoebox of candy, quarters and easily accessible to a 6-year-old. Any responsible person could foresee these kinds of actions were dangerous, reckless and life-threatening."

The boy denied shooting Kayla and blamed another boy to whom he said he had given the gun.

"I wasn't playing with the gun, I wasn't," the boy said Friday.

A 6-year-old girl who prosecutors say was in the classroom when Kayla was shot was on the witness stand about five minutes yesterday.

The girl shyly testified that the 6-year-old boy was the one who shot Kayla.

"He'd steal pencils from her ... he'd be pinching other kids," she said, her face barely visible over the witness box.

Federal grand jurors last month indicted James, Winfrey and Robert Lee Morris III, 19, all of nearby Mount Morris Township, on charges that they possessed stolen firearms and unlawfully used marijuana while possessing the weapons.

Federal authorities have said Morris sold a stolen .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun in December that wound up in the possession of James and Winfrey.

James is scheduled for a Genesee Circuit Court arraignment on the manslaughter charge April 17.