TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — There are four young men locked in the Pima County Jail. One is aged 18, three of them are only 17. All of them are in there for 1st degree murder charges for a drive-by shooting that left a UA coed dead.
The shooting at the house on 5th Street turned a party into a fight to escape and survive.
Police say they recovered a gun at another crime and traced it to 18 year old Estevan Garcia. He told police a group told him they intended to shoot up the party and he agreed to drive them there.
According to detectives, Garcia said he was just the driver, not a shooter but that three 17 year olds: Tevion Beale, Marcus Williams and Akeem Alvarez all shot again and again as they drove by the house. Three of the suspects will need to post a million dollars bond to get out of jail pending trial.
Alvarez is jailed pending a three quarter million dollar bond.
When prosecutors consider whether they’re going to go for a first degree murder charge, they consider pre-meditation. Well how’s this for premeditation? According to the police accounts, that carload of people, drove by the house, several different times, and did a U turn before going back for the actual shooting.
And the police report suggests the group was thorough—that after the shooting, they stopped at a convenience store to figure out if they needed to go back to track down and kill anyone who ran away.
But authorities removed large parts of the complaint before the public could get it so it does not answer an important question—why.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.