AHWATUKEE, AZ — Rena Reeves has now spent more than six months without her oldest boy, Jaylen.
“He has three little brothers who look up to him,” Rena said. “We miss him. Our family misses him so much. It's just not the same without him. It’s not the same. It’s empty, it’s quiet. We cry a lot.”
Jaylen was stabbed and killed near 40th Street and Chandler Boulevard in November.
“It seems like everything keeps moving, everyone keeps living and we are just at a standstill. I feel I died that day,” Rena told ABC15.
Police identified a teenager involved in the stabbing, who provided them with a statement through attorneys.
Rena told ABC15 that detectives would be submitting recommended charges of second-degree murder, but the county attorney confirmed to ABC15 she would not be pursuing charges.
“Yes, a decision has been made to not file that case. I met with the victim’s family and it was a good meeting. My heart was breaking and it continues to break for them but we looked at in the office, not just myself but a number of senior prosecutors, and under Arizona law, if someone raises a self defense claim in trial prosecutors then have the burden of disproving self defense beyond a reasonable doubt,” County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said. “It’s the same standard as proving a crime itself. That's likely, and in fact I would say that is the defense in this case is self-defense. And after looking at all the evidence and understanding that our ethical standards and charging standards are reasonable likelihood of conviction, we did not feel like we had a reasonable likelihood of conviction in the case.”
A newly obtained police report paints a picture of what happened that night, the report saying that 15-year-old Jaylen and a group of other people were in a stolen car and pulled up to a different group of teenagers who were smoking marijuana after 2 a.m. The teenagers were seemingly familiar with each other through school connections.
ABC15 is not publishing the police report in its entirety as it identifies multiple juveniles involved in the incident, but the police report says Jaylen snuck out of his home to meet up with friends.
According to the report, the two groups became involved in a fight, a 14-year-old eventually stabbing Jaylen multiple times. Attorneys for the 14-year-old say in a statement included in the police report that members of Jaylen’s group threatened to drown the 14-year-old during the fight. They then allege the 14-year-old used a knife against Jaylen in “immediate fear for his life and felt he was going to die.”
An autopsy ruled Jaylen’s death a homicide and noted he had been stabbed in the back multiple times.
“He was stabbed 6 times. The majority in the back. No, I don’t think that’s self-defense at all,” Rena said. “We don't have Jaylen anymore. We're doing our best to fight for him. We want justice.”
Attorneys for the 14-year-old wrote that in the hours after the stabbing, he and his friends “ordered food, watched a movie and went to bed.” In the morning, then telling his mom about the stabbing the next day. The boy’s mother then called the police.
Jaylen’s family says they will continue to push for justice.
