Background: The intersection in Louisville, Kentucky, where the shooting occurred (Google Maps). Inset left: Demaurion Moore (WHAS/YouTube). Inset middle: Tyree Leshawn Smith (Spring Valley Funeral Home). Inset right: Mekhi Cable (WHAS/YouTube).
A teenage boy in Kentucky had just left home for his school bus stop when he was gunned down by two other teens, leaving his mother in anguish as her dying son called her.
Demaurion Moore and Mekhi Cable faced numerous charges in the death of 16-year-old Tyree Leshawn Smith.
This summer, a jury convicted both Moore and Cable of multiple charges, including murder, attempted murder, two counts of assault, and three counts of wanton endangerment, regional ABC affiliate WHAS reported. Moore accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but Cable — who had been offered a deal giving him a 30-year sentence — rejected it, and he ultimately received a 60-year sentence from the judge.
Moore and Cable were both 15 years old on Sept. 22, 2021. On that Wednesday morning, Smith was preparing to go to Eastern High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and his mother said she watched him walk out their front door and head to his bus stop.
Minutes later, she received a call from her son.
"Mama, I feel like I'm dead," the mother recalled her son saying on the phone.
Moore and Cable had reportedly driven by the bus stop at the intersection of West Chestnut Street and Dr. W.J. Hodge Street and shot at a group there. The gunfire injured three kids, including Smith.
He was brought to a nearby hospital and later pronounced dead, a spokesperson for the Louisville Metro Police Department said at the time. "We had kids … that couldn't even wait at a bus stop this morning without getting shot, and that is horrifying and devastating," the officer added.
About two months later, Cable fatally shot his cousin, 15-year-old Cortez Duncan, and he later agreed to a plea deal for manslaughter in the case, local Fox affiliate WDRB reported. He was given 10 years, with that sentence running concurrently with his murder sentence.
In the shooting that killed Smith, police reportedly said he was not the target. Moore and Cable were indicted in July 2022 and charged as adults.
An obituary for Smith says he "was funny, loving, energetic and caring" and "brought light into everyone's life that knew him." It added that the "whole staff at Eastern High School loved him" and he loved his job working at McDonald's.