Burlington Teen Charged in Shooting Death of Fellow 14-Year-Old 

A 14-year-old Burlington youth was charged with second-degree murder in the accidental shooting death of a 14-year-old boy from Shelburne.

The shooting took place around 7:20 p.m. on Monday outside an apartment building in Bristol while teens in a car were passing around a 9mm pistol.

Hussein Mohamed was sitting in the rear seat of a sedan in the driveway and “waving the gun around” when it went off, fatally striking front-seat passenger Madden Gouveia in the back, according to police.

Prosecutors opted to charge Mohamed as an adult. He was arraigned in the criminal division of Addison County Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon. In addition to murder, he faces manslaughter and aggravated assault charges.
His public defender entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

After delays related to interpretation services for his Somali family members and debates over closing the courtroom to the public, the hearing before Judge David Fenster was continued to Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.

The killing was the eighth suspicious death or homicide investigation in Vermont in October, a stunning body count that detectives said was virtually unprecedented in such a short period of time.

The shooting rattled Bristol residents just as many families were preparing to celebrate Halloween.

“It’s definitely going to have an impact on our Halloween celebrations,” said Megan Thomas, who lives not far from where the shooting took place.

According to police, driver Mason Bullock, 18, drove up to a home on North Street with two 14-year-old passengers. A young resident there whom police refer to as “L.L.,” came out to meet them.

“L.L.” got in the rear seat next to Mohamed, and Gouveia, sitting in front of Mohamed, began showing off a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol that he said was stolen, according to police. Gouveia passed the pistol back to “L.L.,” who told police he put a single bullet in the magazine.

“L.L.” said Mohamed then grabbed the gun and racked a round into the chamber. “L.L.” said he removed the magazine and put it in his pocket, but Mohamed still held the gun.
“He said Mohamed was waving the gun around, at which time it went off,” police said in an affidavit.

Bullock told police he heard Mohamed cry out, “I didn’t mean to shoot you.”

The driver told police he helped Gouveia from the car and laid him on the ground.

The teens panicked, according to the affidavit. “L.L.” said he hid the magazine under his bed in the nearby apartment. Bullock disposed of the pistol in a dumpster, and they agreed to claim it was a drive-by shooting, according to the affidavit.

Their story soon unraveled when the officers noticed that the window they claimed the fictional assailants shot through was still intact. In taped interviews with detectives, the young men admitted the drive-by story was fake.

Gouveia was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m.
In court on Tuesday, Mohamed was led to the defense table wearing a red jumpsuit, and his legs remained shackled throughout the lengthy afternoon hearing.

His mother and father and three brothers were all in attendance.

Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos argued that Mohamed should be held without bail.

“The waving around of this handgun led to the killing of one of the other youths in the car,” Vekos said. “Even thought he is a juvenile, he is charged with a felony with the possibility of life imprisonment.”

Mohamed's public defender, Jonathan Heppell, argued that he should be allowed to return home to his family.

The judge didn’t get a chance to rule on the issue of bail, however, because the hearing was slowed by multiple technical challenges with the interpreter service.

Also bogging things down was Vekos’ effort to close the courtroom. The prosecutor argued that she had some confidential evidence she wanted to introduce requiring that the public be barred from the hearing. Media organizations objected, and an attorney for Seven Days, Matthew Byrne, represented the paper in the hearing.

He argued that the courtroom should remain open to the public unless Vekos could cite specific reasons why doing so was more important than preserving the public’s right of access to the courts, especially on a matter this grave.

Vekos made a vague argument about why juvenile cases should be kept confidential, but the judge reminded her that this was criminal, not family, court.

The judge agreed with Byrne, and the hearing went forward with the public and media present.

However, when Vekos tried to call a caseworker from the Department for Children and Families' Child Protection Services to testify, Mohamed’s attorney objected that anything he said would violate the confidentiality of the CPS-client relationship.

As 4:30 p.m. approached, the judge postponed the hearing until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and Mohamed was taken back into custody.