Teen Arrested In Connection To Deadly Homestead Shooting
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami-Dade Police arrested a 15-year-old boy Monday night in connection with a deadly drive-by shooting on Sunday.
Police have charged Dennis Shelby Jr with first degree murder in the death of 16-year-old Rahkeem Brown.
The arrest comes just a day after someone in a car shot at Brown and his 16-year-old friend, Tyvontae Robinson, just yards from Brown's home on SW 141st Avenue and 284th Street in Homestead.
Robinson continued to fight for his life in the hospital as Brown's loved ones gathered Monday night at the spot where the 16-year old collapsed.
"She's taking it hard. Very hard," Brown's sister Kiki Clark told CBS4 about their mother.
The boy's mother wept, family holding her up as his friends surrounded a small memorial.
"We doing okay. We trying to do okay," said Clark. "We never had to deal with this. We never were prepared for nothing like this 'cause he wasn't like that."
"It's really bad, it really is," said Gwendolyn Brown. "Teenagers killing each other. This generation, it shouldn't be going on, but it is. There's nothing can do about it looks like."
Some said this shooting was retaliation for a deadly shooting Saturday in nearby Florida City. Noricia Talabert, a senior at South Dade Senior High, was killed and two others were hurt.
"I am just all confused. They're killing my baby. They're killing my baby," said Noricia's mother Regina Talabert. Talabert told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "I miss my baby. I miss my baby. It's so lonely in this house without her."
"She needs to come home. She needs to come home," sobbed Noricia's niece Kadedra Nichols.
"She was a wonderful, beautiful, nice little girl," said Linda Saint-Jaques. "She was very smart, very talented, she didn't bother nobody. She was not the target, she just got caught up in the crossfire."
According to witnesses, Noricia was in a car with her friends when someone shot at them. She died on the scene. Deanna Clayton needed crutches to stand because she has shrapnel in her right knee where she was wounded. She and Daquanty Allen were in Noricia's car when they were shot at.
"I remember gunshots. I was on my phone and looking down. I heard gunshots and the car pulled off. At first I ran out of the car. I knew she was gone and I didn't believe it," said Clayton. "It's not right what they did, she wanted to go to college. She was a good person. She never got in any trouble."
The day before she was killed, Noricia tweeted about her goal to graduate, go to college and pursue a career in nursing.
"She was very smart. She was going to have a great, bright future," said classmate Phanesa Pharel.
"She was the best daughter ever. She was a part of me. She was my best friend. She looked forward to a bright future. She wanted to be a nurse practitioner," said Talabert. "She meant so much to me. She was a such a wonderful daughter. She loved me. She did everything she could to make me and her Dad proud."
Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho tweeted out Monday morning that the gun violence targeting teens had to stop.
We cannot allow callous and cowardly acts of gun violence to continue robbing us of our children. Something must be done. #EnoughIsEnough
— Alberto M. Carvalho (@MiamiSup) October 18, 2015
Zabaleta said gang activity is a possibility.
"It's scary because this could happen to anyone of us," said Pharel. "We could be at the wrong place at the wrong time, its just terrible."
Police urge anyone with information to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers anonymously at (305) 471-TIPS.
