photo by: Images courtesy of the Lawrence Police Department

Images police released of Derrick Del Reed and the Chrysler 300 he was driving while police searched for him after the shooting of Kamarjay Shaw, 14, on March 18, 2023.

A judge set a $500,000 bond on Tuesday for a Lawrence teenager who will be tried as an adult in connection with the shooting death of a 14-year-old boy.

The defendant, Derrick Del Reed, turns 18 at the end of this week, but a Douglas County District Court judge decided on July 10 to try Reed as an adult on the murder charge. At the same hearing, she denied Reed’s bid to gain immunity from prosecution based on self-defense. Reed faces one count of first-degree murder in the killing of Kamarjay Shaw on March 18, 2023, in the 1300 block of Maple Lane, as the Journal-World reported.

Judge Sally Pokorny set Reed’s bond at half a million dollars after Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal asked for a $1 million bond and Reed’s attorney asked for a $200,000 bond. Reed will be held by juvenile services until his birthday on Friday, when the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office will take custody of him at the jail.

Leal argued for the high bond and said that Reed is accused of recklessly firing at a group of fleeing minors in broad daylight on a residential street with no regard for the community at large. Leal said Reed’s first instinct was to then flee the scene and hide the gun in a public place that anyone could have found.

Defense attorney Mark Hartman asked for a lower bond and said that there was only one witness who actually testified that Reed is the one who fired a gun, and that witness on the day of the incident told police he did not see who shot Shaw. Hartman said that another witness saw the shooting from her residence nearby and that the witness said the shooter was a light-skinned African American male. Hartman said that there was a light-skinned African American male in the house with Reed the day of the shooting.

Leal countered that the witness Hartman was referring to did not testify at the immunity hearing that she actually saw the shooting, but rather that she saw a light-skinned African American male with a gun moments before the shooting.

Pokorny said the $500,000 should be sufficient to ensure Reed appears in court, but she said she hoped it would also encourage Reed to try to make decisions going forward using a “fully formed adult brain” — a reference to the adult-status hearing where there was testimony from an expert that Reed was not capable of acting like an adult.

Pokorny also denied requests from Hartman to allow Reed to attend institutes of higher education or to go to work, as well as a request to allow Reed to live with a relative in a neighboring county.

Pokorny said that community safety and Reed’s safety were both concerns if Reed makes bond. In that case, she ordered that he is to be confined to his home and to wear a GPS monitor. Reed is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 14.