Chief: Man latest victim in families’ long-running feud
Police: 19-year-old shot outside church Tuesday likely slain as revenge.
DELRAY BEACH — The body count in a longtime feud pitting two Delray Beach families is going up.
A 19-year-old man shot to death outside a church Tuesday afternoon was likely targeted in retaliation for the unsolved murder last year of 30-year-old Jarvis Collins, Delray Beach Police Chief Jeff Goldman said on Wednesday.
The man killed Tuesday, Branden Newman, is a former Atlantic High School student who was shot along with two other men in front of St. John Primitive Baptist Church at 615 NW 1st Street. Newman died at the scene and the two others were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not life threatening, Goldman said. The injured men’s identities are being withheld for their own protection, the chief said.
Newman was the fifth person to die in the years-old dispute between the two families that has extended to the clans’ friends and associates, Goldman said. The feud has led to at least a dozen shooting incidents since 2009 and left many injured, including a 5-year-old girl in 2014.
“What you have is two groups of people that really just don’t like each other, but who live by each other, drive by each other, see each other in the store,” Goldman said. “It just takes someone to push the limit where we end up with one person dead and two people in the hospital.”
to keep the peace. There was no physical violence in that incident.
Goldman praised the Goldman named the famcooperation police received ilies at the center of the disfrom area residents followpute, but The Palm Beach ing Tuesday’s shooting, but Post is not identifying them said the investigation was in because it’s uncertain if any the early stages and he was members are facing criminal uncertain if the feedback charges in connection with would lead to an arrest. the shootings. Judging by events tak
The Palm Be a ch Post ing place after the three reported in 2015 that mem- men were shot, the enmity bers of both families showed between the two sides is just up at a court hearing at the heating up.
Palm Beach County Jail after About five hours after Newsomeone was arrested on man’s slaying, Delray Beach attempted-murder charges. police responded to shots The families yelled at each fired near the church. No one other as they left the build- was hurt, but Goldman said ing, forcing sheriff ’s depu- that shooting was in response ties to run after them to try to Newman’s murder.
On Wednesday, Delray police went to another shooting call at Southwest Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue. No one was injured. Police believe Wednesday’s attempt also may be connected to the ongoing feud.
Goldman said he was con- cerned that people with no ties to the dispute are going to get hurt. Goldman noted Tuesday’s shooting took place in daylight “with tons of people moving around.”
“These bullets don’t have names on them,” Goldman said. “My fear is that inno- cent people — grandmothers, children, someone mowing their lawn or out for a walk — are going to get hurt. My plea to the community is to help us stop this violence.”
A family friend standing outside the church where Newman was killed said Newman was a “nice kid” who got caught in the wrong crowd.
“Nobody deserves this,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
Newman’s slaying marks the third homicide in Delray Beach this year, according to a Palm Beach Post database.
Anyone with information is asked to call Delray Beach police at 561-243-7800 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800458-TIPS (8477).