Deputies quickly detained two people after Jaden Law was found dead, but the manslaughter charge came only after extended evidence testing.
BRANDON, Fla. — The first six minutes of the response to a fatal shooting inside the Brandon Exchange unfolded quickly: A store employee called 911, deputies reached the shopping center four minutes later, and two people believed to have been involved were detained about two minutes after that.
The criminal case took far longer to develop. Jaden Law, 15, was found dead inside a fitting room at Dick’s House of Sport on July 10, but it was not until Sept. 14 that authorities announced a manslaughter charge against Ahmad Webb, 16. Between those dates, investigators reviewed surveillance footage, recovered a firearm from a retention pond and obtained laboratory and ballistic results linking that gun to the fatal shooting. The State Attorney’s Office approved a charge of manslaughter with a weapon after what the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office called an extensive investigation.
The timeline began at 4:28 p.m. July 10, when the sheriff’s 911 Dispatch Center received a call from an employee reporting a shooting inside the store. Deputies arrived within four minutes and located Law in a fitting room. He was dead when authorities found him. Two minutes later, deputies detained two people they believed could be connected to what had happened. At least 33 deputies responded, including members of the agency’s K-9 Unit, as law enforcement secured the scene and began reconstructing the events inside the store.
Surveillance footage established another part of the chronology. Investigators said three juveniles entered Dick’s House of Sport together and went into a fitting-room area. Authorities later identified two of them as Law and Webb. Employees reported hearing a gunshot, and video showed two people leaving the store and fleeing into the parking lot. In its later update, the sheriff’s office said Webb was shown leaving the fitting-room area shortly after the reported shot. The agency has not publicly identified the third juvenile.
Despite the large police response, authorities said the wider Brandon Exchange remained open and continued normal operations through its regular closing time. The contrast was striking: Shoppers continued moving through the commercial property while one store contained a death scene and investigators worked to determine how a teenager had been fatally shot. Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer said after the shooting that violence in a place where families gather was particularly concerning and emphasized the department’s rapid response.
The next important event in the timeline occurred away from the fitting room. On July 11, one day after Law’s death, the sheriff’s office dive team recovered a firearm from a retention pond south of the shopping center. The agency later sent the weapon through laboratory and ballistic testing. Those tests determined that the firearm had been used in the shooting. The sheriff’s office has not publicly said who placed the gun in the pond, and the available official account does not say who owned it or who carried it into the store.
That distinction is important because the public evidence summary establishes a sequence without providing every step investigators say led them to Webb. Authorities have said he was in the group that entered the fitting-room area and that surveillance video showed him leaving shortly after the gunshot. They have also said the gun recovered from the pond was the one used to kill Law. They have not publicly described the full evidentiary bridge between those facts or disclosed what happened among the three teenagers before the shot was fired.
The medical examiner added another confirmed element to the case by determining that Law died from a single gunshot wound and classifying his death as a homicide. The finding established the manner of death for the investigation, but the sheriff’s public statements still did not identify a motive. FOX 13 reported after Webb was charged that authorities had not said what led to the firearm being discharged or who originally brought it inside the store. Those points remained unresolved in the public account.
As investigators worked through that evidence, Law’s family faced a different timeline. His father, Samuel Law, told Tampa Bay 28 shortly after the shooting that Jaden routinely spent time at the shopping center with friends. He said the visit therefore did not initially seem unusual. After learning of the shooting, however, he wanted to understand why the people who had been with his son ran from the store. He also said he had not known that Jaden had access to a gun or that friends around him might have had access to one.
Samuel Law’s statements came during the early stage of the investigation, when no one had been charged. He described his son as fun-loving and kindhearted and said the loss would be difficult for the entire family. His questions did not establish what happened, but they highlighted the uncertainty that surrounded the case during the period between the rapid police response and the much later charging decision.
On Sept. 14, that investigative period reached a new stage when the State Attorney’s Office approved a manslaughter charge. The sheriff’s office said Webb was arrested and charged with manslaughter with a weapon in Law’s death. Sheriff Chad Chronister said detectives had continued working throughout the case and credited them for pursuing the facts over the preceding two months. The charge is an allegation, and no finding of guilt was included in the materials reviewed for this report.
The elapsed time between the shooting and the arrest shows the difference between securing a scene and building a criminal case. Deputies were able to arrive, detain possible participants and preserve evidence within minutes. Determining what the evidence supported required substantially more time. Investigators obtained medical findings, reviewed video, recovered a weapon from water and waited for forensic testing before prosecutors approved the manslaughter charge. The sheriff’s office has not said publicly whether other forensic evidence also contributed to that decision.
Law&Crime reported after the arrest that authorities had not yet disclosed what led to the shooting or all of the details explaining how Webb was identified as the person responsible. A probable cause affidavit that might have contained additional information was not immediately available to the outlet at that time. The report also said Webb’s next court date was not immediately listed.
More than three months after the July 10 shooting, the public chronology remains clear in some places and incomplete in others. The 4:28 p.m. emergency call, four-minute deputy response, two additional minutes before detentions, next-day firearm recovery and Sept. 14 charge have all been publicly documented. The reason the gun was present, what occurred immediately before it fired and how it reached the retention pond have not been explained in the sheriff’s public account. The agency continues to classify the investigation as ongoing.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.