Teen Gets Maximum 40 Year Prison Term in Shooting Death of Arlington ISD Student on School’s Steps

A Tarrant County jury today sentenced an Arlington teen to the maximum allowable (for a juvenile) 40 years in prison for capital murder and attempted capital murder in a March 2023 shooting incident that left one student dead and another injured at Arlington ISD’s Lamar High School.

NBC DFW reported that the 16-year-old — whose name was not publicly reported due to his age — had pleaded “true” to shooting and killing 16-year-old Ja’Shawn Poirier and injuring a female student.

Investigators determined that the then 15-year-old teen took a shotgun to Lamar High School and fired into a crowd of students waiting outside on the steps before classes began. It was not believed that the two boys knew each other.

Could Be Released Much Sooner
A hearing will be held on the juvenile’s 19th birthday, in roughly three and a half years, to determine if he will be turned over to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice or released, media reports reflect.

• Note: On Sept. 7, the father of the accused (now convicted and sentenced) teen shooter was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for a gun crime after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, federal prosecutors announced in a press release.
  
  Prosecutors stated that the evidence reflected that the gun — a Mossberg, model 500, 12-gauge shotgun — that the teen used in the shooting had been bought for him by his father.