Teen shoots himself to look like victim in robbery cover-up, police say

When police got there, they expected a crime scene. What they got instead, police said, were two men claiming they had just been ripped off — by a teen who called police and said he had been the victim of a drive-by shooting.

If it sounds like a jumbled mess, it was, sort of. But when police put the pieces together it wasn’t all that complicated: One of three men who committed a robbery actually shot himself to hide the crime and claimed he was the victim, police said.

It wasn’t clear if the men had been arrested or charged with a crime by late Wednesday morning. But Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies said armed robbery charges against the three men are pending.

According to police — who only released a brief narrative and refused to comment — it was just past midnight Tuesday when they responded to a call about a man who had been shot during a drive-by at the Royal Palms West Apartments in Orange County.

When they arrived, two men approached the deputies and said they had just been robbed. Police said they provided descriptions of the three men who robbed them. Meanwhile, another man there, an 18-year-old, told police he called them after being shot.

Orange County deputies eventually put the pieces together.

“At this time it appears that the injured suspect shot himself while leaving the scene of the robbery with his accomplices,” cops said.

The man who police say shot himself was taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

This story was originally published March 8, 2017 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Teen shoots himself to look like victim in robbery cover-up, police say."