15-year-old ‘reached inside for something,’ says man accused of killing SC teen

A 15-year-old boy was shot and killed on Wednesday, after he showed up in the South Carolina neighborhood of the owner of a car that had been stolen a day prior.

Derrick Grant, of Charleston, was killed in North Charleston by 24-year-old Quadarrel Lamont Morton, according to multiple media reports. He has not been charged.

The shooting was precipitated by an incident on Jan. 16, when Morton left his girlfriend’s 2013 Hyundai Sonata running with the keys in the ignition while inside a store, according to ABC News 4. When he came out, the car had been stolen. A day later, Morton said he spotted the car in the cul-de-sac of his neighborhood when he arrived.

Morton told police he then spotted a black man coming from behind an alley of the cul-de-sac, with the keys of the car in his hand, and heading toward the car where he “reached inside for something,” the station reported.

The Post and Courier reported that 911 calls revealed Morton told the dispatcher that he told the teen to “stop.”

“I said, ‘Hey look, that’s my car. What are you doing in my car?’ He reached for something,” the paper reported. “I fired once. … I saw him reach again. I fired one more time.”

When the dispatcher asked Morton if he had shot the teen, Morton said, “no, ma’am,” according to the Post and Courier.

But by the time police arrived, Grant was dead inside the stolen car, ABC News 4 reported. The coroner’s office stated Grant died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Additional details concerning what led to the shooting are not available, because Morton declined to speak once officers read him his rights, the station reported.

Live 5 News reported the police have not said if any weapons were found inside the stolen vehicle.

It’s unclear if the state’s “Castle Doctrine” law – which gives immunity to those who kill someone while defending themselves or others from intruders in their homes or occupied vehicles – or the “Stand Your Ground provision – which allows individuals to use deadly force without duty to retreat to prevent the death or great bodily injury of themselves or another person – would apply to this case, according to multiple reports.

The Post and Courier reported that a neighbor who saw the shooting said Morton “took out a gun, aimed it into the front seat of the car ... and just shot him.”

This story was originally published January 23, 2018 at 12:01 PM with the headline "15-year-old ‘reached inside for something,’ says man accused of killing SC teen."