Teen arrested, 2 others sought after fatal shooting of Duncanville High student in DeSoto

Authorities have arrested one teenager and are still looking for two others in connection with the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old during what DeSoto police called a “drug deal done bad” earlier this month.

Nikovian Devon Calhoun, 17, was was taken into custody at his home Tuesday on a charge of capital murder in the death of Jayden Washington.

Police have obtained two additional capital-murder warrants in the case, for 18-year-old Jarrod Raymond Ford Jr. and 17-year-old Zachary Jaheim Shelton.

DeSoto police were called about 7 p.m. Jan. 11 to an apartment parking lot in the 500 block of East Belt Line Road where a Honda Civic had crashed into an unoccupied GMC Yukon. Two people in the Honda — a man who was driving and Washington — had been shot.

Witnesses told police they’d heard gunshots before the crash and saw two men running from the area.

Both victims were taken to a hospital. Washington was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the head, while the man underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to his torso.

Police found 9mm and .40-caliber shell casings at the scene, as well as drug paraphernalia. An officer spoke to Calhoun and a juvenile about a block away, near Calhoun’s home, but did not hold them or ask them for identification.

Lured into a robbery

According to an arrest-warrant affidavit, the man who was shot told officers several days later that he and Washington had arranged through SnapChat to sell marijuana to someone at that parking lot.

When two males approached the driver’s side of the car, the man decided he no longer wanted to make the sale and started to drive off. The two would-be buyers then opened fire on the car, he said.

Police used SnapChat records to determine that the user whose account set up the purchase was an acquaintance of Calhoun, writing in the affidavit that he had likely used that account without the owner’s knowledge.

Officers searched Calhoun’s home last week and reported finding ammunition and a laser sight for a handgun in his bedroom. During a subsequent interview at the police station, Calhoun said he knew the shooters had planned to commit a robbery but downplayed any involvement he may have had, police said.

After the search, police heard tips that Ford and Shelton had been involved in the shooting.

Detectives spoke to Calhoun’s acquaintance, who said that the pair were responsible and had gone to Calhoun’s home afterward, then threw their weapons into Joe Pool Lake the next day, the affidavit says. Ford’s brother told officers that Ford had left town in a hurry, police said.

Police spoke to Calhoun again Monday, and he admitted that the trio had come up with a plan to lure the victims into a robbery and that he’d given Shelton a gun, the affidavit says. He at first denied being at the scene of the shooting but later said he had gone there but did not fire a weapon at the victims, police said.

A tragic loss

Washington was a Fort Worth resident who attended Duncanville High School.

In a message to parents, principal Michael McDonald wrote that one of the school’s families had “experienced a tragic loss.”

“As a father and principal, this is unthinkable and my heart goes out the family,” he said.