TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Student Shootings Stem From Shoe Kissing, Neighbor Says

News Channel 8 image by KATE CALDWELL

FROM LEFT: Brian Alonzo Gainey, 17, James Benjamin Gainey, 16, and Jeffrey Brian Argo, 19, made their first appearance in court today.

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE WELLS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 19, 2007

Updated: 12/19/2007 02:39 pm

GIBSONTON - Monday's shooting of two East Bay High School students near the entrance to the Carriage Pointe subdivision stemmed from one student ordering another to kiss his shoes, a neighbor says.

   Jeffrey Brian Argo

That student is the younger brother of two of the three teens charged in the shooting. They were ordered to be held without bail today at their first court appearance.

Investigators say Brian Alonzo Gainey, 17, shot the victims. Both he and his brother, James Benjamin Gainey, 16, will be tried as adults. The third suspect, Jeffrey Brian Argo, 19, drove the car used in the crime, deputies say. The three teens were charged with two counts of attempted murder and face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Jessica Davis, 16, and Gregory Powell, 16, are still recovering at Tampa General Hospital. Davis was shot in the chest, and Powell was shot in the back, Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter says. Their families have requested that no information about their conditions be released.

Brian Gainey turned himself in at about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday at Orient Road Jail, arrest records show. He lives at 2215 Murdock Blvd., Orlando.

  Brian Alonzo Gainey

About six hours earlier, James Gainey was arrested at the Juvenile Assessment Center in Tampa. He went there accompanied by his mother, Devaughn Duncan. The East Bay High freshman lives with Duncan at 7956 Carriage Pointe Drive, blocks away from where the victims were shot.

At 3:30 p.m. Monday, Argo drove the two Gainey brothers to the school bus stop to retaliate against the two students, according to an arrest affidavit.

Detectives said Argo told them all three of the young men got out of his 1990 maroon Nissan Maxima and that Brian Gainey fired a handgun at the students as they walked away from 8029 Carriage Pointe Drive, off Symmes Road.

James Gainey

Argo was arrested Monday night at Gibsonton Drive and U.S. 301, Hillsborough deputies say. He lives at 11318 Linarbor Place, Tampa. Argo was on probation for an armed robbery, records show.

Family Squabbles

A man who identified himself as the father of the Gainey brothers but who would not give his name during a phone interview today, says the family was doing "fine."

The man says James Gainey did not know there was a gun in the car and that he does not know where his older son got the weapon.

He says he feels bad for the families of the students who were shot.

The man says the family moved to the subdivision two months ago and that deputies have been called there several times to investigate incidents in which his younger son was harassed.

"If the cops had done their job … this might not have occurred," the man says.

On Dec. 13, a brick went through Duncan's window at 6:39 p.m., according to a sheriff's incident report. There were no injuries and no arrests.

Two days earlier, deputies responded to Duncan's home for a report of an aggravated assault.

Two East Bay girls got into an argument with Duncan's 15-year-old son, identified as Travis Tucker in an arrest report.

Tucker hit a 15-year-old girl, knocking her unconscious for several minutes, and his mother then hit the second girl, 13, in the head, according to the sheriff's office. Tucker, an Eisenhower Middle School student, was charged with felony battery.

The 13-year-old girl's mother, April Junior, says the fight happened after the girls walked off the bus. She thinks it stemmed from her having asked Tucker's mother stop him from continuing to meet with a girl in front of her home.

Her daughter's face was swollen and she received a scratch under her nose, and the other girl's nose was fractured, Junior says.

Shoe Kissing

The next afternoon, on Dec. 14, Tucker was beat up, hit on the face and back with fists at the entrance to the subdivision at Ekker and Symmes roads, Carter says. That incident occurred at 4:45 p.m.

That fight and Monday's shooting, Junior says, started with a shoe-kissing incident.

Last week, Tucker told Powell's younger brother to kiss his shoes, Junior says, and on Friday, Tucker was beaten at the bus stop in retaliation.

After that fight, someone ran through the neighborhood shouting that Tucker's older brother would be coming from Orlando to "shoot every one of us," Junior says.

"We're living in this world today where there is no more 'kid stuff,' " she says. "It's all adult stuff. Kids aren't kids anymore. They have no fear."

Reporter Mike Wells can be reached at (813) 259-7839 or mwells@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT