Jaden Law’s father questioned why his son’s companions fled, while investigators spent two months building a manslaughter case.
BRANDON, Fla. — Days after 15-year-old Jaden Law was found shot to death inside a fitting room at a Brandon shopping center, his father publicly asked a question investigators had not yet answered: What happened after his son entered the store with two other teenagers and never came back out?
Samuel Law’s search for an explanation began well before authorities announced a criminal charge. He told Tampa Bay 28 in July that his son often went to the Brandon Exchange with friends and that there was nothing unusual about Jaden spending time there. What was unusual, and devastating, was the call that eventually brought news of his death. Samuel Law said he struggled to process what had happened and wanted to know why the other people who had been with his son left the store after the gunfire rather than remaining with him or summoning help.
Two months later, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced a significant development. Ahmad Webb, 16, had been arrested and charged with manslaughter with a weapon in connection with Jaden Law’s death. The State Attorney’s Office approved the charge Sept. 14 after what authorities described as an extensive investigation. Even with the arrest, however, several of the questions that surrounded the case from its first days remained unanswered publicly, including what caused the gun to be fired and who originally brought the weapon into the store.
The fatal encounter began on the afternoon of July 10. According to the sheriff’s office, Jaden, Webb and a third juvenile entered Dick’s House of Sport at the Brandon Exchange and went into a fitting-room area. At 4:28 p.m., an employee called 911 to report a shooting. Deputies arrived within four minutes and found Jaden dead inside a fitting room. The medical examiner later determined that the 15-year-old died from a single gunshot wound and classified the death as a homicide.
Surveillance footage gave investigators a partial chronology but not, at least in the material released publicly, a full view of what happened behind the fitting-room door. The sheriff’s office said employees reported hearing a gunshot and video showed Webb leaving the fitting-room area shortly afterward. Two people were seen fleeing into the parking lot, and deputies detained two individuals believed to be involved within minutes of arriving. Authorities have not publicly named the third juvenile who was with Law and Webb.
In the first days after the shooting, Samuel Law said he did not know that his son had access to a firearm or that people around him might have had one. He also expressed doubt that the circumstances could simply be dismissed as an accident, pointing to the decision by two people to leave after the shooting. His comments reflected a grieving parent’s questions rather than an investigative finding. At the time he spoke, the sheriff’s office had not announced an arrest or publicly assigned criminal responsibility for his son’s death.
Investigators found another major piece of evidence one day after the shooting. On July 11, the sheriff’s office dive team recovered a firearm from a retention pond south of the Brandon Exchange. Laboratory and ballistic testing later determined that the gun was used in the shooting, according to the agency. Public statements have not explained who put the weapon in the pond, when it was placed there or what evidence investigators used to connect its movement after the shooting to a particular person.
The firearm and surveillance footage became two of the clearest publicly identified parts of the investigation. Investigators also had the medical examiner’s finding that Jaden’s death resulted from one gunshot and was a homicide. What authorities have not released is a detailed account of the interaction among the three teenagers before the shooting. They have not announced a motive or said whether the gun was being carried, displayed or handled for some other reason when it fired. They also have not said publicly who owned the weapon.
While detectives worked, Law’s family was left to describe the teenager apart from the circumstances of his death. Samuel Law called his son fun-loving and kindhearted and said Jaden meant everything to the family. Funeral-home remembrance material emphasized his kindness and the love he left with relatives and friends. Those descriptions offered a different frame for a story otherwise dominated by surveillance footage, police response times, ballistic testing and criminal allegations: Jaden was a teenager whose family expected him to return from an ordinary outing with friends.
The Sept. 14 charge provided the family with an official allegation but did not provide a complete public narrative. The sheriff’s office said its detectives determined that Webb was connected to Law’s death and charged him with manslaughter with a weapon after the State Attorney’s Office approved the case. A criminal charge is an accusation, and the available public reporting did not include a finding of guilt or a detailed judicial ruling establishing what occurred inside the fitting room.
Sheriff Chad Chronister said when the arrest was announced that detectives had continued working on the case from the day of the shooting. He said the investigation “has never stopped” and credited investigators for pursuing the facts surrounding Jaden’s death. The agency has characterized the investigation as ongoing and said additional information would be provided if developments warranted an update.
The first response to the shooting had been far faster than the process that ultimately produced the charge. The employee’s 911 call was recorded at 4:28 p.m. Deputies arrived four minutes later, and the sheriff’s office said two people believed to be involved were detained two minutes after that. At least 33 deputies, including K-9 personnel, responded. The broader Brandon Exchange remained open through its normal closing time, even as the sporting-goods store became the center of a homicide investigation.
Law&Crime reported after Webb’s arrest that a probable cause affidavit containing additional details about how investigators identified him as the person responsible was not immediately available. The outlet also reported that no next court date was immediately listed at that time. Later reporting located through Oct. 21 repeated the manslaughter charge and the sheriff’s evidence summary but did not resolve the central factual gaps about what preceded the gunshot.
For Samuel Law, those gaps echo the questions he raised days after losing his son. Authorities now say they have enough evidence to accuse Webb of manslaughter with a weapon, and they have tied a recovered firearm to the fatal shot through laboratory testing. But the public record still does not explain why the gun was inside the fitting-room area, who brought it there or what occurred in the final moments before Jaden was shot. The sheriff’s office continues to describe the investigation as ongoing.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.