Monday, December 8, 2008

Alabama: Birmingham teen murder suspect in wrong place, mother says

Birmingham, Alabama

From the Birmingham News of December 5, 2008
Birmingham teen murder suspect in wrong place, mother says

The adoptive mother of a teen charged with capital murder of an acquaintance who was killed while the two were robbing someone Sunday said her son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Malik Hameed, 17, is remorseful over his involvement in a weekend robbery that left his accomplice, a family friend, dead, said his mother, Hamidah Hameed, 56.

"All he's been doing is crying and asking me to come get him," Hamidah Hameed said. "He keeps saying, `Mama, I'm sorry.' I told him he had a chance to think and make a different choice, but he didn't think. He just asked me to hug him and hold him."

Police say Malik Hameed and Patrick Cortez Levert, 26, were shot Sunday in the 100 block of Cotton Avenue Southwest while trying to rob a 39-year-old man at gunpoint.

The man pulled a gun and shot both, police said.

Levert, found on the sidewalk, was taken to UAB Hospital, where he died. Someone drove Hameed to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, where he was treated and later taken into police custody.

Though Hameed didn't shoot Levert, he is charged with capital murder because he was a conspirator in a crime that resulted in death, police said.

Hamidah Hameed said witnesses have told family members her son wasn't armed.

"We haven't been able to verify whether he was or wasn't armed," said Birmingham homicide Sgt. Scott Thurmond. "But from talking to him, he knew what was going on prior to getting there. He knew the deal."

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