‘Do you know what Russian roulette is,’ asked 1 teen accused in rash of student robberies

The teens who are accused of being involved in a string of robberies and carjackings told one of their victims they were only committing crimes against white people, said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

The frequency of their crimes and the level of violence also was increasing with every crime they committed, Lott said on Friday.

“These are hardcore kids,” Lott said. “These are not the first crimes they had committed.”

Three teens have been arrested – the last of them early Friday morning. Only 17-year-old Raquan Green has been named by Lott’s office. The names of the other two were withheld because they are 15 years old. The crimes they’re accused of committing took place at student apartment complexes around Shop and Bluff roads.

Green is facing charges of armed robbery and kidnapping. Both 15-year-old teens are facing charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault.

The teen arrested Thursday will also face one count of attempted murder and a charge of assault on a police officer while resisting arrest, for “putting up resistance while getting arrested,” which resulted in the hospitalization of the arresting deputy for a non-life threatening leg injury.

The crimes the teens are accused of taking part in dates to the start of July, with the robbery of a delivery driver at gunpoint. As the frequency of the crimes increased, so did the violence, Lott said.

One of the teens pointed a gun to one of his victims’ chest, and asked “do you know what Russian roulette is,” before pulling the trigger, Lott said. The gun did not fire.

Before arrests were announced, Jordan Dinsmore on Thursday told The State newspaper the men who kidnapped her first pointed a gun at her and threatened to pull the trigger if she kept screaming. They also threatened to take her to a nearby house and rape her, before she foiled their plan by jumping out of her car.

In a separate incident, however, the men told one of their alleged victims that they were only going after “white people,” Lott said.

On the night of July 25, a woman who was kidnapped said the men were already driving away with her in the car when they realized the woman was black, Lott said. That’s when they apologized to her.

They told her that “they hated white people and that the only people they were going to rob were white people,” said Lott, according to the woman’s account.

After that, they drove her back to where they kidnapped her from, dropped her off and took her car, he said. Later that night, the teens kidnapped and robbed two white men, Lott said.

The case is still under investigation.

This story was originally published July 28, 2017 at 11:41 AM with the headline "‘Do you know what Russian roulette is,’ asked 1 teen accused in rash of student robberies."