A 16-year-old Kent boy faces a first-degree assault charge in adult court for allegedly shooting and injuring a 17-year-old Kent boy during a dispute at a McDonald’s parking lot on the East Hill.
Diontae M. Moore-Lyons is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 29 in King County Superior Court at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. He is in custody at the county jail in Kent with bail set at $250,000. County prosecutors decided to charge Moore-Lyons as an adult because he is accused of a serious violent crime with a deadly weapon.
Moore-Lyons reportedly shot the victim once in the chest at close range in a crowded parking lot at McDonald’s in the 10100 block of Southeast 256th Street at about 7 p.m. on Feb. 12. There were many customers and employees in the area.
According to charging papers, Moore-Lyons apparently was mad about a hair pick he had left in the victim’s girlfriend’s car and arranged to meet the boy and his girlriend at McDonald’s. When the boy told Moore-Lyons they didn’t have the hair pick, Moore-Lyons shot him. Both boys attended Kent Phoenix Academy and knew each other.
Paramedics transported the victim to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He suffered lacerations to his right lung, according to charging papers.
During an interview at the hospital with a Kent detective, the victim said he told Moore-Lyons after he pulled out a small handgun to shoot him, but he didn’t think he would fire the weapon. The victim said he believed he was shot because Moore-Lyons was with two other males he thought were in a gang and that Moore-Lyons was trying to impress them.
Moore-Lyons fled after the shooting and police were unable to locate him. Accompanied by his father, he turned himself in the next day at the Kent Police Station. He requested to speak to an attorney and didn’t talk to detectives about the shooting.
The hair pick dispute started on Feb. 11 when the victim’s girlfriend came in contact with Moore-Lyons at the Westfield Southcenter shopping mall in Tukwila. Moore-Lyons asked the girl for a ride home. The next day, the girl received threatening phone calls from females she didn’t know asking her to return the hair pick Moore-Lyons had left in her car. The females told the girlfriend they were at the McDonald’s parking lot. The girlfriend told her boyfriend about the calls and they agreed to go to the restaurant’s parking lot.
The victim drove his girlfriend’s car to the site. He exited the car and walked up to Moore-Lyons. After a short argument about the hair pick, Moore-Lyons reportedly shot the boy in the chest. He stumbled several feet and then collapsed to the ground.
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