A teen who brought a stolen handgun to school the day after he threatened a former girlfriend was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this week.
Ladarious Kashone Cardwell Forte, 18, pleaded guilty Tuesday to unlawful possession of a firearm on a school campus and robbery before 102nd Judge Jeff Addison. Forte was represented by the Bowie County Public Defenders Office. Forte received a 20-year sentence for robbery and a 10-year term for unlawful possession and both sentences will run at the same time.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Cardwell-Forte showed up about 8:30 p.m. March 18 at the front door of the apartment on Redwater Road in Wake Village, Texas, where a 14-year-old girl lived. He was allegedly draped in a blanket and yelling and cursing. Two girls who accompanied him were attempting to calm him down as he demanded the girl call a boy she had been seeing since her month-and-a-half long relationship with Cardwell-Forte ended.
Cardwell-Forte allegedly threw the phone on the ground before pointing a gun at the girl and her mother through the apartment door. The mother told police she slammed the door closed and hid her children in a darkened room until police arrived.
Wake Village police and Liberty Eylau Independent School District police coordinated in a search for Cardwell-Forte. Text messages from Cardwell-Forte to the girl threatening to “blow her head off at school because he doesn’t care,” were allegedly sent a few days before the apartment confrontation and in the possession of the law enforcement agencies.
Investigators were not able to locate Cardwell-Forte the night of March 18 as he no longer lived at his last known address. The following morning police waited and searched for him on the west campus of Liberty Eylau High School. Shortly after 8:30 a.m., Cardwell-Forte allegedly came into the front office and signed in late.
When officers stopped and searched him in a hallway as headed toward classrooms, they found a 9 mm pistol in the waistband of his pants which had been reported stolen in Texarkana, Texas.
Assistant District Attorney Randle Smolarz prosecuted the case.
