Cleveland teen faces 25 years in prison after admitting to shooting Case Western student during carjacking spree

A courtroom at the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 15-year-old boy faces 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty Monday to shooting a Case Western Reserve University student and robbing four other people.

Derrelle Travis carried out the crime spree in 11 days in December 2021 when he was 14. He pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated robbery, all carrying sentencing enhancements for using a gun to commit the crimes. He also pleaded guilty to one count of felonious assault and a weapons charge.

The plea agreement saw Cuyahoga County prosecutors drop multiple charges, including attempted murder and kidnapping.

Travis and prosecutors agreed to recommend that Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams impose a prison sentence between 18 and 25 years.

Travis faces a minimum of 18 years and a maximum of 87 years in prison.

The charges stem from five incidents, four of which were near Case Western’s campus.

The first came Dec. 19, 2021, on Mayfield Road in the heart of Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood. Two days later, he struck at Murray Hill Road and Fairview Road. On Dec. 23, 2021, he carjacked a woman outside an apartment building on Random Road.

On Dec. 26, 2021, Travis carjacked a man outside the Target on Cedar Road in University Heights.

The next day, prosecutors say he ran up to a 23-year-old woman sitting in her car at Random Road and Mayfield Road and pulled a gun on her. The woman got out of the car, and he shot her twice in the stomach before driving off, prosecutors said. The woman told police the gun had a green laser sight on it, prosecutors said.

Police arrested Travis three days later. Prosecutors said officers found him with a gun with the laser sight on it.

Travis told Collier-Williams on Monday that he is in 10th grade. He remains free on house arrest with an ankle monitor pending his sentencing. That hearing will take place after the court’s probation department completes a pre-sentence investigation.

Collier-Williams rejected a request from Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Yasmine Hasan to revoke Travis’ bond. Hasan told the judge that Cleveland police detectives monitoring Travis’ social media accounts say that he posted a picture on Instagram in which he was holding what appeared to be a gun, but Travis obscured it by putting an emoji on the photo.

Travis’ attorney, Mary Catherine Corrigan, said that it’s unclear when the photograph was actually taken or if the weapon was real.

Collier-Williams initially lowered Travis’ bond from $150,000 to a $25,000 personal bond at a Feb. 23 hearing. The ruling came without a request from Travis or Corrigan.

Corrigan said at the hearing that Travis would live with his mother and grandmother and that he was enrolled in online courses through Ginn Academy.

Two of the victims in the spree told Collier-Williams at the February hearing that they would not feel safe if Travis were released on bond. The shooting victim said in a written statement that the family of Cleveland police officer Shane Bartek, who was killed in a carjacking four days after she was shot, got to see his killer convicted and sentenced to life in prison months ago. But Travis’ case is still pending.

Collier-Williams said during the hearing that Travis was “one of the youngest people I’ve ever had before me,” according to a transcript of the hearing. Travis at the time had been held in juvenile detention since his December 2021 arrest.

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