Three teens attacked a student on a bus in Prince Georges County, Maryland (WUSA/YouTube)
A Maryland judge Friday sentenced a 17-year-old boy to 25 years in prison after he ran onto a bus and tried to kill a middle school student, prosecutors say.
Kaeden “Baby K” Holland, then 15, stormed a school bus with two other teens in Princes Georges County in May 2023. The group then “brutally attacked” the student. Holland pointed a gun and pulled the trigger three times at the student at his head and chest. However, the gun jammed. The entire incident was captured on school bus footage.
“It’s our right in this community to be safe, to work and to live freely without the fear of being harmed,” Prince Georges County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy said in a statement. “The school bus driver, aide and teenaged victim will forever be traumatized by what they experienced on that school bus.”
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According to a courtroom report from the Washington Post, prosecutors played the one-minute video in court during the sentencing hearing. There was no audio but cops said the bus driver was praying as Holland pulled the trigger.
Holland’s attorney Michael Lawlor said several factors played into the incident, including his client growing up in a single-parent household in a crime-ridden neighborhood and Holland himself being shot last year.
“I feel as though it’s a cruel trick that gets played on so many young people, through no fault of your own … that’s what was handed to you, and so you might slip up,” Lawlor said, according to the Post. “When you slip up, you get to go to jail for 25 years.”
The bus driver reportedly testified she has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the incident. As for the teenage victim, his mother said she moved him away from the area and he refuses to ride the school bus. When he did enter a bus, he had a panic attack, she reportedly testified.
Braveboy told reporters after the hearing that sentence was appropriate because the whole incident was planned and Holland’s intent was to “murder a child.”
Holland pleaded guilty earlier this year to first-degree attempted murder.
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