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Teens who killed Uber driver get off easy while teen accused of rigging homecoming election to be tried as an adult

Libby Emmons

A juvenile young woman who was accused of rigging an election for homecoming at her high school in Florida is set to be tried as an adult. Two juvenile young women who killed an Uber driver in Washington, DC, were not tried as adults, and will not face any jail time. Those two girls, who carjacked a man which led directly to his death in a crash, reached a plea deal with prosecutors and will not suffer any jail time.

After the two carjacked the man, drove off with his car, and flipped it over onto its side, which killed the man, one of the girls was frantically searching for her cell phone and wanted to go back into the car to get it.

In defending the decision not to try the girls in DC as adults, Acting Washington, DC Police Chief Robert Contee III said that “The 15-year-old would not be charged as an adult. You know, obviously, this is a tragic case and, you know, charging this person as an adult [who’s] a juvenile
 does not bring back the lost loved one in this case.”

Contee downplayed the crime as well, saying that it was merely a symptom of a larger problem. “That’s one of many,” he said. “We have one for that particular– one of the individuals involved, but there are several carjackings that we have had so far this year where we’re seeing individuals that are involved in multiple, multiple cases. So clearly I think that speaks to us really examining, as a community, the accountability that’s in place. I think it’s the larger issue than just this one particular case.”

The homecoming queen’s jurisdiction in Florida is of course a different jurisdiction from that of the young women in Washington, DC. But the consequences of killing a man seem vastly more lenient than those for voter fraud in an election for homecoming at a high school.

In the case of the slain Uber drive, Mohammed Anwar, two teen girls were initially charged with murder. Their names of the 13-year-old from Southeast DC and a 15-year-old from Fort Washington, Maryland were not released due to their juvenile status. Once a plea deal was reached, it was reported that they would not be held past the age of 21, not would they serve prison time.

A video of the incident shows Anwar, 66, being killed in a crash as a result of the girls carjacking him. The two girls allegedly sped off with his car as he attempted to hold on to his vehicle and prevent the theft. The car then crashed and flipped on its side, killing Anwar. Anwar is survived by a wife and two children in the United States, and an adult son and four grandchildren in Pakistan.

The fraudulent homecoming queen, Emily Rose Grover, who is 17, allegedly teamed up with her mom to cast approximately 250 extra votes to push her over the top as the winner for homecoming queen at Tate High School in Pensacola. Grover turned 18 last month, and after that, the State Attorney’s Office said that they would try her as an adult, according to the New York Post.

Grover and her mother, Laura Rose Carroll, are facing felony charges, and Carroll works in the school district as principal at Bellview Elementary School. The extra votes fraudulently cast by the fiendish duo were found to have originated from the same IP address. The two are alleged to have also accessed student accounts without authorization.

The scheme came to light, in part, because Grover bragged about using her mother’s access to school records due to her status in the school district. The charges include “unlawful use of a two-way communications device and criminal use of personally identifiable information.”

As to their punishments so far, Grover is currently free on $2,000 bail, while her mother had to post $6,000 to gain her freedom. Each of them face a maximum of 16 years on the charges if they are convicted. This is a far different punishment than the two DC girls who were videotaped carjacking and killing a man but were set free.

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