Macon – Jurors deliberated for less than two hours Thursday before finding a man guilty of armed robbery in a 2016 attack on a Macon high school student as he walked to catch a bus to school.
Michael Jewroid Mitchell Jr., 21, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and eight years on probation. The prison portion of the sentence must be served without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors Shelley Milton and Jason Martin presented evidence during the three-day trial showing:
A then-16-year-old student was walking to the school bus stop just after 7 a.m. on Jan. 20, 2016, when two men approached him as he walked across the Ell Street Interstate 75 overpass.
He knew one of the men, 20-year-old Javoris Leonard Foster. The other man – Mitchell — was wearing a ski mask and was carrying a khaki backpack.
Michell struck the boy in the head with a gun. Both men took the boy’s Golden State Warriors basketball jersey, shoes, cell phone and ear buds and placed them in the khaki backpack.
Minutes later, the boy pointed out the two robbers to his mother at the corner of Ell Street and Goodwin Drive. Bibb County deputies took up chase at the intersection and followed Mitchell on foot as he ran toward Ballard Hudson Middle School. The chase continued to Anthony Road where deputies apprehended Mitchell.
Captured minutes after the robbery, Mitchell was wearing a khaki backpack that contained the boy’s belongings.
Foster pleaded guilty to armed robbery in December and was sentenced to 10 years, five of them in prison.
Speaking after the sentencing, Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney David Cooke said, “No parent should have to worry about the safety of their child once they slip on their backpack and head toward the bus stop. Anyone who threatens violence to a child on their way to school should expect to go to prison.”
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Contact: Amy Leigh Womack
478-621-6179 (office)
478-319-2529 (cell)
