Slain teen was felon, armed with gun

The death of a 19-year-old man gunned down in broad daylight this week is another example of the justice system's failure to keep criminals locked up, North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said Tuesday.

Investigators have evidence that Dionta RaShad Cochran, a felon, was armed with a gun at the time of his death, even though he was on "intensive probation" after serving about 10 months in prison for a strong-arm robbery last summer, Zumalt said.

"The bigger picture is why is a guy who committed a robbery last year back on the street of my city with a handgun?" Zumalt said.

Zumalt said investigators had not slept Tuesday as they tried to identify who killed Cochran a day earlier and why.

Authorities did not charge anyone with the shooting and did not name a suspect. But they arrested Cochran's friend and cousin and accused them of conspiring to hide two guns after the 11:30 a.m. shooting on Desmond Avenue in the Forest Hills community.

Eric R. Antonio Smith, 19, of Texas was spending the summer with his grandmother, who owns the house on Desmond Avenue where the shooting occurred. Police charged Smith, another felon, with common-law obstruction of justice.

Cochran's cousin, Justin Maurice Townsend, 19, of North Charleston is charged with possession of a stolen pistol, unlawfully carrying of a pistol and possession of a stolen pistol with a removed or obliterated serial number. Affidavits said that Cochran, on the day he was killed, had a gun in his rear pants pocket, and it appeared to have discharged and made a hole in the pants.

The documents said that after Cochran was shot by an assailant, Smith instructed Townsend to remove Cochran's gun from Cochran's back pocket and hide it.

Townsend hid two loaded handguns in the backyard of the Desmond Avenue home, according to the affidavits. They said one of the guns, a .22-caliber Rohm Sontheim revolver, was reported stolen from Colorado. The other gun was only described as a .22-caliber black revolver.

Cochran was shot once in the chest.

Police wouldn't say whether either of the guns was used to shoot Cochran or if investigators had identified a suspected shooter.

Smith's bond was set at $100,000. Townsend's total bond was set at $150,000. They remained at the Charleston County Detention Center late Tuesday.

Smith's mother, Helen Delahoussaye, said police told her that Smith was the intended target of the shooting.

"They said, 'This house is the target. Your son is the bull's-eye,' " she said.

Smith's family members cleared out of the Desmond Avenue home Tuesday afternoon and left the state, Delahoussaye said.

Delahoussaye said Smith lived in a $1 million home in Texas and "has all of the things he needs." She said he was enrolled in Clark University in Atlanta and was staying with his grandmother, Helen McBee, while waiting for classes to begin in August.

Delahoussaye said Smith comes from a "good Christian home."

She said Smith told her before the shooting that he had seen something he shouldn't have seen during his stay in North Charleston, and he was scared.

South Carolina records show that Townsend has no criminal history, and Smith has one conviction for marijuana possession and one for felony, third-degree burglary.

Cochran was convicted of strong-arm robbery in June 2008 and was sentenced to serve no more than six years in prison under the Youthful Offender Act, according to the S.C. Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole Services. He was released April 30 and was arrested again last month on a charge of discharging a firearm into a dwelling in Charleston, his records show.

"If we were watching him, he wouldn't have a gun," Zumalt said.

Zumalt said they've asked the Statehouse for help in cracking down on career criminals but, aside from a few legislators, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

He said the system's breakdown continues to fuel a culture of "street thugs and drug dealers" that continue to cause the city problems. Zumalt said North Charleston's criminals aren't as organized as traditional, big-city gangs but must be locked up.

"We're circling the wagons and we're gradually getting rid of them," he said.

He said the city has cracked down on retaliation shootings and taken it on itself to keep those on parole in check, but they need help.