PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia police say the men arrested for murder, nine counts of attempted murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act were charged with those crimes for shootings that happened Sunday: first on the 400 block of E. Clearfield Street and eight minutes later on the 3300 block of N. Water Street, both in Kensington.
“The motive for these shootings appears to be for control of narcotics territory and its distribution in the area,”
according to Capt. Jason Smith of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit.
The second suspect — arrested Thursday afternoon — is Tayvon Thomas, 25 of North Philadelphia. Capt. Smith said Thomas has a lengthy criminal record of nine prior arrests.
ThePhillyFiles found Philadelphia Municipal Court dockets of convictions for assault, robbery, narcotics, terroristic threats, trespassing and theft of services. He’d been sentenced to prison but this website could not find how much time he served.
Late Tuesday night, police announced they caught the first suspect — who was later identified as Freddie Perez, 30 of Chester in Delaware County.
ThePhillyFiles previously searched Perez’s background and found several incidents of trouble with the law in Philadelphia from 2007 to 2015, mostly drug-related.
Perez was also sentenced to six months of probation in late 2013 for Criminal Solicitation – Patronizing Prostitutes.
Capt. Smith tallied 17 prior arrests, 11 of them for narcotics.
Police had said on Sunday, at about 3:30pm, officers responded to the home of two-year-old victim Nikolette Rivera. The toddler had been shot while in her mother’s arms and was pronounced dead at the scene within ten minutes.
Her 24-year-old mother and grandmother were having the home’s carpets cleaned, and were also watching several small children.
Police had said people outside
“opened fire with an assault rifle through the front door and front windows, striking all three victims and leaving six identifiable bullet holes in the front of the structure.”
Nikolette’s mother was hit by a bullet in her left arm, and suffered a graze wound to her head. The third victim — who the gunmen may have thought was the little girl’s father — was a 33-year-old man who was cleaning the carpets. He was shot in his abdomen, and listed in critical-but-stable condition.
Detectives and crime scene unit workers recovered six 7.62×39 fired rifle casings in the street, directly in front of the house.
Eight minutes earlier, several blocks east, police had said two
“males opened fire on a black SUV using an assault rifle and a .40 caliber handgun. Detectives recovered ten 7.62×39 fired rifle casings and one .40 caliber FCC [fired cartridge casing].”
DAO Homicide Supervisor Voci joined @PhillyPolice Captains Smith & Brown to update the public on last weekend’s drug-related violence. Three men have been charged in two incidents that claimed 2-year-old Nikolette Rivera & critically wounded 11-month-old Yazeem Jenkins. pic.twitter.com/HIFb3KPQw4
— Philadelphia DAO (@philadao) October 25, 2019
Police and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office confirmed the connection between the shootings at a news conference, early Friday afternoon.
- Man charged with shooting infant believed connected to two-year-old’s killing, Oct. 29, 2019
- Shootings, including killing of 2-year-old girl, connected; 2nd suspect charged, Oct. 25, 2019
- 1st suspect in 2-year-old girl’s killing charged, 2nd suspect caught, Oct. 23, 2019
- Arrest in weekend shooting that killed two-year-old girl, Oct. 22, 2019
Comments