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West Orange High School shooting victim says he was shot over circle of friends

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Channel 9 has obtained new evidence that reveals a fight over friendship fueled a shooting at West Orange High School in December.

According to detectives, Jmorian Bell was on the losing end of a fight when he pulled out a gun and shot Ja'Roderick Smith.

Some of what Bell told investigators has been redacted from the hundreds of pages of discovery Kathi Belich has been poring over, but she found Smith had a history of fighting at school and told investigators he was shot over who his friends are.

The new records show Bell actually apologized to police for "snapping at them" during his arrest when he was secretly recorded while inside the patrol car.

He told investigators he was on the losing end of a fight with Smith, but what he said next was redacted from the discovery documents.

Several witnesses told investigators that during the fight, Smith threw Bell's cellphone at a bus and broke it and that Bell said something to the effect that he had something for Smith and then he opened fire.

A school administrator told investigators it was Smith's first day back to West Orange High School and that officials talked to him about some of his behavior problems in the past, including fighting.

Before the fight with Bell, school administrators told investigators that Smith was involved in another fight with at least one other student and as they were dealing with that fight, the shots rang out.

One of the students told investigators about a text hours after the shooting that said there was going to be a huge retaliation fight the next day between Bell's and Smith's friends, but that brawl never happened.