TOLEDO, Ohio — A man convicted of felonious assault in the shooting of two Toledo boys will spend at least the next ten years in prison.
On Dec. 21, 2021, 20-year-old Tyler Williams was indicted for murder, attempted murder, felonious assault and discharge of a firearm near prohibited premises.
Williams accepted a plea deal in February. He withdrew his previous plea of not guilty and pleaded guilty to felonious assault with firearm, and was sentenced Thursday to 10 to 13-and-a-half years in prison.
The charges were tied to the Aug. 20, 2021, shooting of 11-year-old Nathan Sumner and his 14-year-old brother Miguel, who were both shot in the head while playing basketball outside their home in the 300 block of Austin Street in north Toledo.
The boys were taken to the hospital and Nathan died two days later. According to court documents, Miguel has permanent brain injuries from the shooting.
Evidence at the scene included 9-millimeter and .40 caliber shell casings, court documents claim, and investigators concluded that two shooters stood on the street corner and fired on the boys.
A Crime Stopper tip led investigators to Williams' address and identified his car as a black Ford Focus. Two people were recorded leaving the address and getting into a car matching the description, driving past the scene of the shooting, parking and walking to where the boys were playing basketball.
One individual was wearing black shorts with a white stripe. The other was dressed in a dark hoodie and blue jeans. The second person was seen firing on the boys in surveillance video, according to a court narrative.
On Aug. 22, 2021, Toledo police responded to a call of shots fired into the address given by the tipster. Williams was wearing black shorts with a white stripe, matching one of the suspects in the video. He was not in frame during the surveillance video of the shooting.
Williams was stopped for a traffic violation in September 2021, and a .40 caliber gun was found in the vehicle. A search of the residence on Dec. 10, 2021, found four guns.
The residence also had been fired into on June 16, 2021, by two male bicyclists. Two men returned fire from Williams' address that day, and .40 caliber casings found inside or in front of Williams' home matched the casings collected at the scene on Austin Street, where Nathan and Miguel were shot.
A suspect involved in the June shooting told police he was part of a feud with the Williams family and that he was good friends with the Sumner family.
Williams has a record of juvenile delinquency and violent offenses. He was sentenced to six months at a correctional treatment facility and had been released two days before the shooting on Austin Street.
The court denied Williams' bail based on convincing evidence that "proof was evident and the presumption great" that Williams was guilty of murder and attempt to commit murder, according to court documents. The court found convincing evidence that Williams posed a substantial risk to Miguel due to the nature of the shooting and that no release conditions could assure his safety.
From 2015 until the time of his bond hearing, including during the shooting and other offenses, Williams was in jail or on court-ordered supervision.
No one has been convicted yet for Nathan's death.
If you have any information that may help police, call or text Crime Stoppers at 419-255-1111. You can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.