3 accused of murder in shooting death of Tacoma teen have ties to gangs, charges say
Update, 4:50 p.m.: All three suspects charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old have been arrested, Tacoma police announced.
The arrests took place Wednesday and Thursday. Police said the two teenagers suspected of shooting him were arrested in Tacoma, and the older suspect was taken into custody in Portland with the assistance of U.S. Marshals.
Original story: Two teenagers and a 29-year-old man have been accused of driving to a Tacoma apartment complex last week to gun down and kill a 16-year-old high school student.
One of the teenagers, Vincent Lee Bradley III, was arrested Wednesday afternoon, according to Pierce County Jail records. The other suspects have yet to be apprehended. Charging documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court indicate the older suspect fled to Portland.
Bradley, Devonte J. Pool and Isiah D. Martin were charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, and a bench warrant was issued for their arrest. The News Tribune is naming the teenagers because, according to the prosecuting attorney’s office, defendants who are at least 16 and have been charged with a serious violent offense such as first-degree murder are automatically prosecuted as adults.
Pleas of not guilty were entered on Bradley’s behalf at arraignment Thursday afternoon. Judge Edmund Murphy set bail at $1 million.
Prosecutors said during the proceeding that the defendant does not have any prior criminal convictions. He has previously been arrested on suspicion of harassment.
The three defendants are accused in the March 29 homicide of Larry “Trae” Marshall III, a Foss High School student. According to charging documents, Bradley, 16; Pool, 17 and Martin, 29, waited in a red Dodge Charger that afternoon in the parking lot of a West End apartment complex where Marshall was going to meet a friend. Records state Bradley and Pool got out of the car when Marshall walked into the parking lot, and the two fired at least 33 shots at the young man.
One bullet struck Marshall in the neck, according to court records, and two more hit him in the back. Tacoma Police Department officers found the victim unresponsive in a grassy area about 200 feet away from where the suspects allegedly parked to wait for him. Tacoma Fire Department personnel declared him dead at the scene.
Marshall was the fifth person under 18 to die by homicide in Tacoma so far this year, part of a surge in youth crime and violence felt nationally and locally. Another 16-year-old was killed in a shooting Wednesday evening in Parkland.
Investigators have not identified a motive in the shooting, according to charging documents, and it’s unclear how Marshall may have known the three who were allegedly targeting him. Prosecutors wrote in the documents that all three suspects are known to be tied to gangs, but it’s not known if the motive for the killing was gang related.
Detectives used surveillance video, Department of Licensing records and phone records to tie the three defendants to the shooting. Records state that Martin rented the Dodge Charger used to take him and the others to the shooting from an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location on South Tacoma Way.
The Dodge Charger was found the day after the shooting at Martin’s last known address at a South Pine Street apartment complex. According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, surveillance video showed the car return there about 20 minutes after the homicide, and Tacoma and Lakewood police detectives recognized the teenagers who got out of the car as Pool and Bradley.
Gunfire reported outside West End apartment
Tacoma police responded to the shooting at Lakeside Landing Apartments, 1432 S. Mildred St., at about 1:13 p.m. after a 911 caller reported hearing multiple gunshots, according to the probable cause document. Arriving officers found Marshall on the ground, and fire department personnel made efforts to save his life, records state, but he was declared dead at 1:30 p.m.
While Marshall was being treated, a person came out of the apartments who said he was friends with the teenager. The friend reported that Marshall got there by taking a Sound Transit bus, and he’d received a text message from him at 12:47 p.m. saying he was on his way. The two had plans to walk to Fred Meyer to buy some food.
Police found 33 shell casings in the apartment complex’s south parking lot. Records state most were near a parking stall where witnesses reported seeing a “cherry red” sedan parked before the shooting. One shell casing was found in a strip of grass.
Surveillance cameras positioned throughout the complex’s captured different angles of the shooting, records state. One showed the suspects’ vehicle, later identified as the Dodge Charger, enter the parking lot at 1:09 p.m. The car backed into a parking stall and faced Mildred Street.
One minute later, a person who appears to be Marshall was seen walking north on the street. When he got into the parking lot, the front and back passenger doors of the suspects’ vehicle opened, and two people got out, records state. The two walked behind their car and made their way toward the victim, disappearing from camera view.
At 1:12 p.m., multiple rapid-fire gunshots could be heard for about five seconds, according to the probable cause document. Seconds later, the two suspects are seen on camera running back to their car holding handguns, and the vehicle went north on Mildred. According to Pierce County prosecutors, neither gun has been recovered.
This story was originally published April 6, 2023 at 1:16 PM.
