A video recorded on Snapchat shows two Georgia teens who within minutes were both dead playing with guns.
The footage shows Chad Carless, 17, and Devin Hodges, 15, each holding a gun. In the brief video, they point the gun at a friend holding the smartphone that’s recording the footage.
Hodges then re-grips the gun so he’s not holding it normally, but so it’s dangling from his hand as he lightly holds it upside down.
The clip then re-focuses on Carless, who points the gun at the camera once again.
The footage contains several captions plastered in the middle of the frame, as many videos sent on Snapchat do.
The first frame appears to show a pile of marijuana nuggets with the caption “Back to Back.” A brief clip is shown of one of the teen’s feet with a caption using a slang term.
Then, the two teens are seen with the guns as the caption box includes two symbols appearing to be associated with a Snapchat account.
The video was obtained by the Daily Mail from Bralen Bennett, 15, who went to Discovery High School with the two teens. He said he was angry that his friends were dead.
His mother Rhonda Bennett added, “‘It’s is very sad. My son took classes with them and he received this video just moments before the tragedy.”
Sequence of Events
Officials said that the shootings took place on New Year’s Eve in a makeshift shed in Lawrenceville in Gwinnett County around 3:15 p.m.
Officials said that Hodges accidentally fired the gun he was holding and that the bullet hit Carless, who was sitting next to him.
Hodges and other teens who were in the shed all fled.
“Detectives have learned the identities of the two males as well as more details into how the incidents unfolded. After multiple interviews from witnesses, detectives learned one of the males, Hodges, was showing the group a handgun when he accidentally fired a shot,” the Gwinnett County Police Department said in a statement on Jan. 1.
“The shot struck his friend, Carless, sitting next to him in the cramped shed. Carless succumbed to his injuries before help could arrive. As officers were arriving on scene, Hodges was seen running between two homes where he then took his own life with the handgun,” the statement continued.
Police officials aren’t sure how the boys obtained the guns. As seen in the video, they were both handguns.
Neighbors said that the shooting was devastating.
Andrew Tran, an area resident, told WSB-TV that he used to play in the same shed where the shooting happened. “I was shocked because just thinking about it, it could have been my friends,” he said.
People who live in the area said that the shed is a popular hangout spot that was built many years ago.
“The (shed) is kind of a shack that kids hang out in, so we’re kind of like, ‘Oh my God,’” Riverlanding Circle resident Barrie Hunter told the Gwinnett Daily Post. “We’ve lived here for 18 years—this is the first crazy thing (like this) to happen.”
Another neighbor, who declined to be identified, added: “The kids used to play (in) it when they were younger. Now, what goes on—who knows.”