A 15-year-old boy originally charged in juvenile court in connection with a drive-by shooting following a graduation party that resulted in one man being killed and four others critically injured, will now stand trial as an adult. (Johanna Kirk, Deseret News)
Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — A boy who was 15 when he allegedly participated in a drive-by shooting that resulted in the death of a Salt Lake City man following a graduation party a year-and-a-half ago will now stand trial as an adult .
On Thursday, Emmanuel Mading, now 16, was charged in 3rd District Court with murder and six counts of discharge of a firearm causing serious injury, first-degree felonies; obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and eight counts of discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony.
On June 6, 2021, at about 1:40 am, Sean Amone, 20, was shot twice in the head and killed during a drive-by shooting in front of his home at 1354 N. General Drive. Four other men, all 19 or 20 years old, were also shot and injured, some of them critically, according to police. Originally, it was reported that the group was shot while attending a graduation party, but family members say the victims were at the home to get away from a violent confrontation that had happened earlier in the evening at Trolley Square where a graduation event was happening.
Two days later, Mandig turned himself in to police after he heard they were looking for him in connection with the Trolley Square fight.
Mandig told detectives that he had been involved in a fistfight at the graduation dance, according to charging documents. Outside Trolley Square, where the confrontation continued, shots were exchanged and one of the Mandig’s friends was shot in the leg.
After taking his friend to the hospital, police believe Mandig met with a 16-year-old boy and a third man, who allegedly said something to the effect of, “Any Polynesians from Rose Park are getting smoked,” according to court documents.
After Amone and his friends arrived at his house, one of the friends told the police “they had only been at the house for a few minutes when a white Dodge sedan passed by the house. A few minutes later, (the friend) saw the same white Dodge drive back by the house and that’s when shots started ringing out from the car,” charging documents filed Thursday state. “(The friend) states that there were multiple shots and they happened ‘really fast,’ and they were shooting for ‘a long time, maybe 5-10 seconds.'”
In addition to the shooting victims, a neighboring house was struck multiple times, according to police.
“The owners showed officers that bullets had struck their back glass door, and multiple bullets penetrated the walls into the house. A bullet struck the television and there were multiple bullet holes in the interior house walls,” the charges state.
Mading and the 16-year-old boy were later charged in 3rd District Juvenile court with murder. The 16-year-old was caught, in part, after investigators found rap lyrics he had written in reference to the shooting on his phone, according to police.
Mading claimed it was the 16-year-old who fired the shots. According to court documents, the 16-year-old was in the passenger seat of the Dodge Avenger when it drove by Amone and his friends who were standing in the driveway. Mading’s group then turned their car around, turned off their headlights and turned up the music in their car. As the car drove by the victims again, the 16-year-old fired an AR-15 at the group and “emptied the magazine of the rifle,” the charges state.
Mading told police he handled the rifle and put his finger on the trigger but claimed it was empty at the time, according to charging documents.
“Mading further stated that he knew that they were going to do a drive-by shooting on this group. Mading stated that after the shooting they immediately tried to clean up the shell casings from the car and dispose of them,” the charges state. “Mading further admitted that he had deleted his Instagram accounts to hide any evidence that was placed on social media.”
As of Thursday, the 16-year-old’s case remained in juvenile court.
A third person, the alleged driver of the Avenger, was also charged in connection with the incident. Felix “Fat” Issara, 19, of Salt Lake City, was originally charged with obstructing justice, a second-degree felony. Those charges were amended in August to also include murder. A preliminary hearing in that case was scheduled for January.
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Pat Reavy is a longtime police and courts reporter. He joined the KSL.com team in 2021 after many years of reporting for the Deseret News
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