Investigators say surveillance footage shows an attack, a gun handoff and rounds fired at a 13-year-old boy.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The case against an 18-year-old and a 13-year-old accused in the shooting of a Louisville boy rests heavily, at least in its early stage, on surveillance video and arrest records that police say captured the attack.
That evidentiary trail has given the public an unusually direct view into how prosecutors may build the case. Police and local news accounts say the recordings show Chrishau’d Davis, 18, fighting with a 13-year-old victim, striking him with a handgun and then handing the weapon to another 13-year-old suspect, who allegedly fired several shots. The victim survived, according to police. The case now turns on how investigators, prosecutors and defense lawyers test the video, arrest citation details and charging decisions in court.
The first public signal came from Louisville Metro Police, which tied the arrests to a March 20 shooting in the 900 block of South Shelby Street. By the time local television outlets reported the arrests on March 24, the narrative had sharpened: a 13-year-old victim had been found with multiple gunshot wounds, and detectives had taken two suspects into custody. In the records cited by those reports, Davis was accused of hitting the victim in the head several times with a handgun during a fight. The confrontation was said to have started around 4 p.m. in broad daylight, giving investigators both a time frame and a fixed location in the Smoketown neighborhood.
The most striking allegation came from the surveillance sequence that police say continues after the first fight. According to the arrest account quoted by local outlets, the people involved briefly moved out of camera view. When Davis and the younger suspect returned, police say Davis got the handgun back into play, handed it to the 13-year-old and was heard on video yelling, “kill him,” before shots were fired. That alleged command is central because it does more than place Davis at the scene. Prosecutors could use it to argue he directed the shooting, while defense lawyers may examine what the camera actually captures, how clearly audio can be heard and whether the identification of each person in the video is airtight.
The paper trail has been less tidy than the video allegation. One set of local police information described Davis as charged with attempted murder, complicity to first-degree assault and complicity to second-degree assault. A later report citing corrections records said he was booked on murder, first-degree assault and second-degree assault counts. The juvenile suspect was widely reported to face attempted murder and assault-related charges. Differences like that can reflect updates, booking language, separate charging documents or reporting at different stages of the case. What they do not change is the broad accusation repeated across reports: investigators believe the adult suspect used a gun during the fight and then armed the younger suspect for the shooting.
Other pieces of the record remain thin. Police have not publicly explained what led to the confrontation, whether the boys knew one another beforehand or whether investigators recovered the handgun. Authorities also have not publicly described witness statements beyond the surveillance account, nor have they released detailed medical information on the victim beyond saying he suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was expected to survive. That leaves the video as the most concrete public evidence so far, but not the whole picture. In cases like this, detectives still have to match footage with interviews, physical evidence, hospital records and chain-of-custody documentation before trial.
The court process began quickly. Davis was scheduled for arraignment on March 25, and a later published account said he pleaded not guilty. Juvenile proceedings for the 13-year-old suspect were not detailed in the same public way. The next steps are likely to include prosecutor review of the filed counts, evidence sharing, and court hearings that may clarify whether the charge language settles on attempted murder, murder or related complicity theories. Until then, the surveillance video remains the backbone of the public case and the key evidence likely to shape what happens next.
For now, the investigation stands at the point where a vivid allegation has been made public but many of the record-tested answers still belong to the courtroom, not the street where the shooting happened.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.