Police and the Baker County District Attorney’s office have released scant information about the fatal shooting of a male juvenile on July 13 in Baker City.

Part of the reason is simple — the accused killer is also a juvenile, a 17-year-old male.

Authorities generally don’t release the names of juvenile suspects — even when the charges, as in this case, include second-degree murder — at least not initially.

It’s not so clear, though, why officials haven’t answered a few basic questions that ought not jeopardize anyone’s privacy. This includes the circumstances of the suspect’s arrest. He fled the scene of the shooting, in the parking lot at the Baker Technical Institute, according to a press release from the Baker County Sheriff’s Office. Ashley McClay, public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, later told the Herald that the suspect was arrested in “the early morning hours” of July 13.

Nor have authorities said whether the female juvenile, who was also at the BTI parking lot but was not hurt, called police to report the shooting, or whether there were other witnesses, one of whom made the initial call.

What we do know is, of course, terrible.

A boy is dead.

And although it’s premature, given the paucity of information, to make absolute pronouncements, presumably the district attorney, Greg Baxter, has a legitimate reason to have filed a motion seeking to have the suspect prosecuted as an adult, a decision a judge will make.

This wouldn’t even be an issue if the suspect were 18 rather than 17.

That age different is not significant, though, in a situation when somebody ends up dead.

Absent compelling extenuating circumstances — which might exist, to be sure — it would be proper for the defendant in this case to be charged, and if convicted, to be punished, as an adult.

That could mean the difference between the shooter spending the rest of his life in prison, or being released within 15 years.

Sadly, this wouldn’t have been an issue a few years ago.

When Oregon voters approved Measure 11 in 1994, they endorsed a mandatory minimum sentencing system that required juvenile defendants ages 15-17 to be prosecuted as adults for murder and other serious crimes such as rape and assault.

But the Oregon Legislature weakened Measure 11 when it passed Senate Bill 1008 in 2019. Most notably, the law removed the requirement that juveniles 15-17 charged with the most serious crimes, including murder, be prosecuted as adults. Instead, prosecutors, as Baxter has done, must seek a hearing before a judge.

That’s unfortunate.

And unnecessary.

But at least there’s still a process by which a murder suspect can be potentially held to account for a heinous act rather than being coddled, comparatively speaking, due solely to what might be a few months difference in age.