GALLATIN, Tenn. (WZTV) — The Gallatin Police Department (GPD) has arrested a man who allegedly shot and killed a 16-year-old teenager caught breaking into a car.

Police report on Sunday night just after 11 p.m. officers responded to a shooting call at Albright Farms located at Trail Drive and Jill Street. Previous to the call, a 16-year-old was seen breaking into a car in the parking lot by Adrian Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, 20, engaged the juvenile and the teen ran. Wilkerson fired shots at the teen, hitting him. Now, police say he has been charged with second degree murder.

His mother, Tiffany Wilkerson, is struggling to find words.

“It’s just not me involved, it’s another family that’s involved,” she says. “I have a heart, so it hurts either way. It hurts. Nobody wins in a situation like this.”
Although Tiffany admits she did not see the shooting herself, she says that her son did not intend to kill the 16-year-old teen-he just intended to scare him off after seeing him breaking into cars.

“I know deep down inside that his intentions were not to kill a child,” she adds.
She says her son was shot at first.

“He said, ‘Hey, hey, what are you doing?'” Tiffany begins to say. “And when he said that, the guy shot. When he shot, he shot back, and things just went from there.”

FOX 17 News called Gallatin police to confirm. Police said it’s still an active investigation, but there was no indication there was another weapon. Police add the teen was shot while running away.

“He was running away,”Clemmie Greenlee, a local youth advocate says. “Why did you even shoot? A break-in your car is not a death sentence. If a person is running away after you’ve seen them, you let them run. They’re going to get caught somewhere else, or you call the police.”
Greenlee says she feels for both families, including the 20-year-old man who is now locked up.

“His life is going to be changed,” she adds. “His mental state of mind is definitely going to be changed, and I’m pretty sure that, at that time of night, it startled him.”
Greenlee says that on one hand, the teen should not have been breaking into cars. But she also believes people can be too quick to pull out a gun.

Greenlee wants to see more after hour programs for our youth to get them off our streets and out of trouble.

“Somethings not working,” she adds. “I don’t understand how all of this money is flowing around us, and we can’t gravitate to any of it to stop this violence in our own homes, in our own communities, with our own kids.”
Police ask anyone with information on the case to call 615-452-1313.