Man arrested in connection with January bus stop shooting

A man accused of shooting two men, one of them fatally, while the victims sat at a bus stop northwest of Fort Lauderdale has been arrested.

Leronte Smith, 34, of Hallandale Beach, was arrested March 3 on charges of first-degree murder with a firearm and attempted first-degree murder with a firearm in the January shootings, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

The two victims were sitting at a bus stop in the 1400 block of Northwest 27th Avenue in central Broward County shortly after 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 9 when they were shot by someone from a black Mercedes that drove by, the Sheriff ’s Office said.

One of the men died at the scene. The other, who was shot in the leg, was taken to a local hospital where he underwent surgery and is expected to recover, a probable cause affidavit said.

The man who survived told detectives while in the hospital that the Mercedes circled the area several times before he and his friend were shot by a man who got out of the front passenger seat of the Mercedes, the affidavit said. The victim ran to a nearby home to ask for help and collapsed, he told detectives. The victims’ names are withheld under Marsy’s Law, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that allows crime victims to withhold their identifying information from the public.

Shortly before 10 a.m., Fort Lauderdale Police were called to investigate a fraud and theft that happened about a half mile away from where the shooting happened hours earlier that morning, the affidavit said.

While investigating that call, an officer found bullet casings on the ground near a black Mercedes Benz, which matched the suspect’s car from the bus stop shootings.

Surveillance video from a home near where the Mercedes was found showed it being parked in the area just minutes after the bus stop shootings, the affidavit said, and three men got out.

Detectives connected Smith to the car after finding a bank statement with his name on it inside, the affidavit said. The victim who survived picked Smith out of a photo lineup.

It was not immediately clear whether Smith knew the victims.

He is currently held in the Main Jail and has a case pending against him in Palm Beach County after he was arrested last year on charges of burglary, petit theft and criminal mischief, court records show.

Smith has been arrested on felony charges several times in Broward and Palm Beach County.

Smith