Docs: Teen arrested after firearm transaction leads to fatal shooting at gas station

INDIANAPOLIS -- A 17-year-old has been arrested after a transaction involving a firearm reportedly led to a fatal shooting at a gas station on the east side of Indianapolis last month.




According to court documents filed on Monday in Marion County, Sir Braylon Howell, a Plainfield resident, has been arrested on two charges of murder as well as one charge of robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Level 2 felony.




The documents indicate that Howell was also charged with one count of dangerous possession of a firearm, a misdemeanor.

At around 11:23 p.m. on April 15, officers responded to a gas station in the 3400 block of North Emerson Avenue on a report of a shooting. When officers arrived, the documents said they located a man in a blue Dodge who had a gunshot wound to the head.




The man, later identified as 18-year-old Malachi May, was pronounced dead on April 17, according to previous reports.




During the investigation into the shooting, officers obtained security footage from the gas station. According to court documents, the video reportedly shows May's truck entering the gas station. Two people, one of whom police allege is Howell, approach May's truck.








Howell reportedly approached May's driver's side window and had a conversation with May. The documents said that during the conversation, Howell allegedly took out a gun and shot May through the truck's open window "at point-blank range." May then drove his vehicle from the scene and crashed it nearby.




The documents said that Howell reportedly ran from the truck, stopped to retrieve a spent cartridge from the ground, and ran toward East 34th Street. Another person who was reportedly with Howell at the time dropped a vape, screwdriver and a two-liter of soda and also ran from the gas station's parking lot.




At the time, investigators were able to recover "latent prints" from the driver's side window where Howell reportedly touched the truck. However, the documents said that no spent cartridge cases were located inside the truck.




In conversations with members of May's family, the documents said that police learned that May was allegedly trying to sell a gun and had set up a meeting with a person he met on social media to sell the gun.




Discussions obtained from May's phone with a person whose contact name was "Jmoney W" reportedly included details of the transaction, including an agreement between the individuals to meet at the gas station on April 15.








Through conversations with witnesses, as well as scouring social media, police identified Howell as the suspect in the shooting. The documents said Howell's social media page reportedly included him wearing the same shoes from the night of the shooting, as well as showing guns on his profile.




Investigators used Howell's social media page to track down his location. On the afternoon of April 28, detectives reportedly saw Howell with a gun filming himself. Howell was then taken into custody. Police said that Howell's prints were the ones found on the driver's side window of the vehicle where the shooting occurred.




The court documents state that Howell's pretrial hearing is scheduled for July 1 and his jury trial is scheduled for July 8 in Marion County.





via: https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/docs-teen-arrested-after-firearm-transaction-leads-to-fatal-shooting-at-gas-station/