‘It’s a pain that will never go away’
Family members in court for hearing in 15-year-old’s killing.
RIVIERA BEACH — City police found dozens of shell casings Dec. 23 scattered across West 36th Street. Eleven of those were fired from a gun that bore 19-year-old Torrance Smith Jr.’s DNA, police say.
Smith and two other teens were arrested Wednesday in the drive-by shooting that left 15-year-old Makayla Dennard dead and another man injured. Riviera Beach Police Chief Clarence Williams said Wednesday the arrests come as part of the city’s crackdown on gun violence.
Smith appeared before Judge Dina Keever on Thursday but his bond hearing was delayed until this morning. The Public Defender’s Office is representing another teen charged in the case, so an attorney with the Office of Regional Counsel will be appointed to represent Smith to avoid any conflicts of interest.
More than a dozen tearyeyed relatives and friends sat in court Thursday, donning shirts in Makayla’s honor.
“My family has to suffer, so I think they need to suffer,” Makayla’s aunt, Sherron Reed, said Thursday morning. “My sister has to live with this forever. It’s a pain that will never go away.”
T h e t e e n s c h a r g e d a s juveniles in the shooting are being held without bail until their next hearings. For the youngest suspect, who is 17, that won’t be until March 23. That teen is being represented by the public defender’s office. The 18-year-old arrested in the shooting will appear in court again today with his appointed attorney, Christopher Haddad.
Relatives of both the teens appeared in juvenile court Thursday afternoon. Both families decline to comment on the case.
S mi t h ’s a r r e s t r e p o r t details cit y police’s investigation into the shooting. Witnesses told detectives a shooting earlier that day on West 23rd Street in West Palm Beach left four young men rattled.
They suspected they were the intended targets.
Witnesses said they saw the four young men in a black Kia. At least two had guns. Smith, of West Palm Beach, was in the right front seat of the Kia, a witness said, and pointed a gun toward Makayla and 20-year-old Nikobra Stringer. Gunshots rang out. Then the Kia sped away.
Makayla was shot in the head and died four days later. Stringer was shot in the arm, a non-life-threatening injury, police said.
One witness told police they saw four young men jump out of a Kia along 37th Street shortly after the shooting. They ran and left the Kia behind.
K9 units followed the suspects’ trail to an apartment complex on 37th Street.
Police found three guns in the apartments’ common area, records show, one of which had Smith’s DNA on it. That gun matched the 11 shell casings police found leading west from the crime scene.
It is unclear whether police are looking for a fourth suspect in the shooting. Cit y police spokeswoman Rose Anne Brown s a i d pol i c e “have the suspects we’re looking for,” though the investigation remains open.
T h e t w o o t h e r t e e n s arrested with Smith were minors at t he a ge of t he shooting, police said. One is now 17, the other 18.
T h e D e c . 2 3 s h o o t i n g occurred at the same address where t h re e p e o p l e — a 14-year-old male, a 17-year-old female and 25-year-old male — were shot and wounded Nov. 19.
Late 2016 saw a rash of back-and-forth shootings along the Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach city line.
“These warring groups going back and forth, they know they are, we know who they are and if they step out of line I have confidence that these hard-working men and women (in the police department) will do what they each and every day, keep our community safe,” Williams said.