Details in fatal LR shooting emerge

The 16-year-old charged with manslaughter last week in a November homicide was one of four people who opened fire with assault rifles on a man during an apparent robbery, leading to the death of a teen in the group, a police affidavit states.

The gunfight on Nov. 18 at the West Park Executive building at 7101 W. 12th St. between the four — Dillian Cheeter, 16, Marcus Marbley, 17, and two others who were unidentified — and Juwan Mayes, 25, left Marbley dead and Cheeter, Mayes and 33-year-old Edward Anderson wounded, the affidavit written by Detective Chris Henderson states.

It was not clear from the affidavit how Anderson was shot. Police arrested Cheeter on Friday and he pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter, first-degree battery and aggravated robbery, court records show.

Cheeter posted a $50,000 bond on Tuesday morning, court records show.

At least two of the four were seen on surveillance video entering the building with assault rifles, and one was wearing a “Scream” mask that obscured their face, the affidavit states. A witness told police that at an apartment prior to the incident, Cheeter said he and Marbley were leaving to rob someone. Later, Cheeter told the same witness that the robbery “flipped on them.”

Mayes told police he was on the fourth floor when he heard a commotion in the hallway and stepped outside to check it out, the affidavit states. He saw masked men with guns, he said, and asked if they were OK before they opened fire.

Another witness who was in the building told police that Mayes said “something doesn’t look right” and told them to duck into a corner right before the shooting started.

A second witness in the building said Mayes told them that there was someone in the hallway with “a Draco,” the affidavit states. Draco usually refers to a shortened AK-47-style firearm without a shoulder stock that is sold on the U.S. market as a pistol.

Mayes and the two witnesses fled onto a balcony in the building, and the four would-be robbers went back down to the parking lot, where they continued to shoot at the people on the balcony, the affidavit states.

The affidavit does not say whether Mayes was armed. It says investigators found shell casings on the balcony, where none of the robbers were, and one of the witnesses stated that one of the four robbers, later identified as Cheeter, had been shot by the time he got back down to the parking lot and fell multiple times while running away.

The second witness in the building at the time told police that Mayes climbed onto the outside of the balcony and was going to jump when he was struck by gunfire from the parking lot, the affidavit states.

Cheeter and Marbley got back into the Hyundai Elantra they drove to the building in with Sarah Spangler, who owns the car, she told police. Spangler waited in the car in the parking lot during the shooting.

Marbley started to drive east on 12th Street, Spangler told police, when she heard a loud thudding noise and Marbley lost consciousness. The car accelerated and crashed through a metal railing into the Haven of Rest Cemetery, coming to a stop on a concrete headstone, the affidavit states.

Police located the Hyundai crashed in the cemetery across the street from the West Park Executive Building with an apparent bullet strike on the roof and blood in the front driver and passenger seats, the affidavit states. Marbley was outside the car on the passenger side and died at the scene.

There was also an assault rifle magazine in the driver side floorboard of the vehicle. Officers made contact with Cheeter at an area hospital and interviewed Spangler later.