The 21-year-old charged with killing a Spelman College student has a previous gun arrest, records show.
Devonni Manuel Benton is charged with shooting Spelman sophomore Jasmine Lynn in the chest on Sept. 3. She died after being struck by a stray bullet. On Wednesday, a judge ordered Benton held without bond on charges of murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
This is not Benton's first trip to the Fulton County jail.
In April 2006, Atlanta police arrested Benton, then 18, on charges of carrying a concealed weapon.
Benton was hanging out with a group of teenagers across the street from a skating rink on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when a fight broke out, according to the 2006 police report.
Several officers working at the rink said they intervened after hearing some of the participants yell gun, the report states.
Benton climbed into a friend's car.
Officers found the 9mm – containing 15 rounds -- under the passenger seat Benton was sitting in, the report states. Benton complained the car -- and the gun -- weren't his, according to the report.
But police arrested him anyway, along with the owner of the car.
Benton was booked in the jail and released the next day on a $3,000 signature bond, said Tracy Flanagan, spokeswoman for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
In August 2007, a State Court judge ordered Benton, a first-offender, to attend a pre-trial intervention program, Fulton Solicitor General Carmen Smith said.
"That means he went to an intervention program instead of going to trial," Smith said.
Benton was also arrested in March in Statesboro on charges of sales and possession of marijuana possession, according to court records.
Benton’s aunt who she had legal custody of until he was 18, declined to talk about Benton’s arrest record.
“Everybody has their problems,” Sheila Kitchens said Wednesday afternoon at her College Park home.
But she insists Benton did not kill Lynn.
"He's a good kid," she said. "If he had anything to hide, he wouldn't have been in school."
Homicide investigators say Benton opened fire on Sept. 3 after getting into a dispute with a group of students near Clark Atlanta University. One of the bullets struck Lynn, 19.
That night, Benton told his cousin he was going to meet some friends at a party. He left the house by himself, Kitchens said.
He came home later on and nothing seemed unusual, his aunt recalled.
She didn't learn more until police started calling the house. She told detectives she couldn't verify Benton lived with her, according to court records.
On Wednesday, Kitchens listened as Judge Sylvia McCoy read the charges against her nephew and then ordered him held without bond. The hearing lasted less than minute.
Benton is scheduled to return to court Oct. 21.
After Wednesday's hearing, Benton's attorney insisted that he is innocent.
"We can't wait to see the day that a jury says, ‘we find the defendant not guilty,'" attorney Jackie Patterson said.
Patterson said that while his client was at the scene of the shooting, he "did not, at any time," have a gun.
Patterson said investigators told Benton that they had surveillance video of the incident, but "police outright lied to my client when they said they have him on video. There is no video in this case."
Asked if Benton knows who fired the gun, Patterson said, "that question, I do not want to answer at this time."
Investigators had information from the beginning that Benton was involved, but they wanted to build a solid case before making the arrest, said Lt. Keith Meadows, who heads the homicide division.
The arrest came after more than 60 interviews, including a witness that could place Benton at the shooting, Meadows said.
Witnesses said they saw Benton fire six shots into a crowd as he was running from the dispute, according to his arrest warrant. Witnesses later picked Benton out of a photo line-up.
“It’s hard that the young lady is dead and innocent," Kitchens said. "I’m sorry for the family, but it’s the wrong person.”
Kitchens said she raised Benton and her son off Flat Shoals Road in College Park. Benton listened to her lessons of studying hard, earning As and Bs at Banneker High School, Kitchens said.
He also played basketball all four years of high school, she said.
After graduating in 2007, Benton spent a year studying computer science at Gordon College in Barnesville, Gordon officials said.
This year, Benton enrolled in ITT Technical Institute, where he working on an associates' degree in computer network systems.
He was in class there Tuesday when police showed up.
Staff Reporter Marcus K. Garner contributed to this report.
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