SOUTH MIAMI, FLA. (WSVN) - Authorities have identified and arrested two teens in connection to a shooting in South Miami that claimed the life of a 15-year-old boy.
On Sunday, Miami-Dade Police arrested 18-year-old Quinton Lenard Mayo and 19-year-old Javari Omarion Jones for their involvement in the shooting.
Police said the shooting happened just after 5:30 p.m., Sunday afternoon, inside an apartment complex near Southwest 64th Street and 59th Place, following a dispute between the victim, Nolan King, and the two other teens.
The victim’s foster mom Andrea Price spoke to 7News over the phone.
“Like a truck just hit me. It’s unbelievable I have to tell a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old that their brother isn’t coming back,” said Price.
Nolan was living with her for three years in their South Miami apartment.
Just one day after the shooting, Price is still grappling with the fact that she’ll never see Nolan again.
“That’s my son. In my eyes he was a good kid. He showed me nothing but love. Showed love for his siblings. He never did wrong in my eyes. But I can’t tell you what he did outside the house,” she said.
Police said Nolan was meeting Mayo and Jones when something went wrong.
Pablo Lopez, Nolan’s neighbor, saw them before the shooting.
“All of them were hanging in front of the elevator when I come home, they all like looked at me crazy and then I went upstairs and not even two minutes later I heard ‘Pow’,” he said.
Another neighbor, Gizzel Borrero, told 7News she also heard gunshots.
“I heard a big boom go off on the staircase. I went to the last floor and I see the boy slumped over,” said Gizzel Borrero.
Lopez ran downstairs and found the 15-year-old barely breathing with another young boy next to him.
He stayed with Nolan until the ambulance arrived.
“I was just telling him to breathe. I seen him trying to breathe. He wasn’t responsive though. Then all the police came and I just left,” said Lopez.
First responders rushed Nolan to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
Police said the suspects got away in a white Nissan after the shooting.
Detectives quickly found them but when they tried to conduct a traffic stop, the suspects led police on a chase.
The driver finally stopping at South Dixie Highway and Southwest 104th Street but the two people inside, decided to make a run for it.
Surveillance video, obtained by 7News, shows the two teens running across several lanes of traffic as they tried to evade police but were eventually caught.
“Any homicide is tragic, makes it even more tragic when it’s this close to the holidays and to exacerbate that this is a teenager that we’re talking about,” said Miami-Dade Det. Andre Martin. “This is a 15-year-old young man that lost his life. The subjects were known to the victim, they were here at this location together and some sort of dispute may have occurred for unknown reasons and a firearm was produced and shots were fired leaving this 15-year-old teenage deceased.”
One neighbor told 7News that this is just a senseless act of gun violence.
“It’s senseless it really is,” said a neighbor.
A witness described what she saw.
“I heard a big boom go off on the staircase, and as I was coming out of the apartment, I went to the last floor and saw the boy slumped over,” she said.
Mayo and Jones are charged with fleeing police and resisting arrest without violence. Jones has an additional charge of high-speed run from police.
Jones appeared in bond court on Monday afternoon. Mayo did not appear in court.
“Do you have anything to say?” said 11th Judicial Circuit Judge Mindy S. Glazer.
According to jail records, both Mayo and Jones have bonded out of jail.
7News captured Mayo being released from jail Monday afternoon.
Both of them remain persons of interest in the shooting investigation.
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