Teen charged after causing more than $6,000 in damage to school parking lot

Tyler Ellison, 18, of Tecumseh, is scheduled to appear for a criminal setting in Ozark County Court before Associate Judge Raymond Gross at 9 a.m. Dec. 10, in connection with a case in which he’s charged with felony-level property damage involving the Gainesville High School parking lot. 

According to the probable cause statement, prepared by Ozark County Sheriff’s Sgt. Seth Miller, on Sept. 4, the officer received a call from Gainesville High School Assistant Principal Trevor Hicks, who reported property damage at the school. 

Hicks provided the officer with a video from 11:38 p.m. Sept. 2, showing an older model, grey single-cab Ford truck with a diamond plated fuel tank in the bed completing a controlled slide in the south parking lot area, leaving black marks all over the painted parking areas and driveway areas. The video shows that the vehicle then spun tires in front of the entire school. The report says that Ellison can be seen in the driver’s seat of the truck during the incident on the video security footage.

Hicks said that the parking lot cost more than $20,000. A quote for repair estimated the cost to repair the damage at $6,442.50 which consisted of 1,495 feet of stripe repainting and around $4,200 to reseal 28,000 feet of surface. 

Because Ellison is 18, he has been charged as an adult. In 2018, the Missouri legislature passed a bill that changed the standard age for which teenagers can be tried as an adult, raising it from 17 to 18 years old. Due to a technical error with the bill, it was not fully enacted until the legislature approved the additional funding for juvenile court and detention services in 2021. Before this bill was enacted, all 17-year-olds in Missouri were treated as adults by the criminal legal system. Now, the age has been raised to 18.