Image Credit: Nashville.gov & Canva
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
A teenager out on probation for a homicide conviction is back behind bars after being arrested in conjunction with a weekend carjacking that ended with a high-speed chase.
18-year-old Eduardo Melendez-Pineda and 15-year-old Melany Sigaran-Pineda are accused of carjacking a victim outside a home on Patricia Drive last Thursday.
Metro Nashville Police report that, “Melendez-Pineda allegedly approached the driver’s side and fired one shot into the SUV and one shot into the air.”
After forcing the occupants to get out of the vehicle, the pair fled in the stolen 2014 Toyota RAV4 and picked up another 17-year-old male. The vehicle was spotted in Mount Juliet, resulting in a high-speed chase that ended with the vehicle in flames near Hobson Pike and Smith Springs Road.
The teens attempted to flee the scene on foot; Melendez-Pineda was caught quickly, after an MNPD helicopter pilot saw him “discard a black bag” that was found to contain a handgun.
Sigaran-Pineda was found shortly after as a passenger in a Dodge Charger, driven by someone she had called to pick her up. She cooperated with police and is currently out on bond.
The driver, 23-year-old Kevin Miranda-Robles, was also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, having open alcohol in the vehicle, and failure to have a driver’s license. He is out on bond as well.
Melendez-Pineda, however, refused to consent to be interviewed by police. He remains jailed on an $82,000 bond.
This is not Melendez-Pineda’s first run-in with the law. He pleaded guilty in August to criminally negligent homicide for the November 2022 death of 13-year-old Aaliyah Ingram.
On November 21, 2022, Ingram was picked up in a stolen vehicle driven by Cesar Martinez, a boy she had met online. Melendez-Pineda, also 15 at the time, and two other individuals joined the pair.
The car crashed and flipped, with Ingram pinned underneath. Sources say the other teens did not seek help for Ingram, and she was left seriously injured in a nearby creek before she crawled to a house to seek help. She died shortly after from her injuries.
Both Melendez-Pineda and Martinez were charged with criminally negligent homicide. In August, the case was transferred to adult court, where Melendez-Pineda pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to just three years of supervised probation.
He was returned to jail in less than 60 days following the carjacking incident.
Ingram’s mother, Natalie Chastain, says she is not surprised to hear that he is back behind bars.
“How can a violent crime be given probation? I knew it would be a matter of time before he messed up again,” Chastain said.
She has been vocal about the need for reform within the justice system, arguing that violent crimes should come with harsher penalties, even for minors.
“No one has learned a lesson here, and that’s the problem,” she continued. “There shouldn’t be another victim. My daughter should have been it with that. That should have been what took him off the streets.”
Melendez-Pineda appeared before a judge on Tuesday, with additional charges of felony possession of a handgun and a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, along with an additional $2000 bond. He is now scheduled to return to court on Thursday.
2 Responses
I thought those Nashville license plate readers were specifically sold to taxpayers as “preventing carjackings” in exchange for tracking everyone’s movements without suspicion or cause. Here they are proven not to work for their alleged intended purpose again.
One of lucifer’s dimmercrap darlings.