Dispute over $5 led to bullet barrage, cops told
Two reputed gang members are facing charges in connection with a fatal shooting in Fort Lauderdale, police said.
British Romeo Wilkerson, 37, of Fort Lauderdale, is accused of firing 18 shots at John Henry Gurley, 25, as Gurley sped down the street in a pickup truck before crashing into a building.
Meshawn Pernell Neely, 39, also of Fort Lauderdale, is accused of picking up shell casings off the street so police would not be able to trace them to the shooter, court records show.
The shooting happened about 11 p.m. Sept. 22 near the Lennox Apartments in the 800 block of Northwest 10th
Terrace, investigators said.
Wilkerson — also known as Dooley King — was talking with Gurley who was sitting in a Ford F-150, an arrest warrant said. According to one witness, they started arguing over a $5 shots were fired.
The truck was hit 18 times on the passenger side and Gurley was hit once in the torso before crashing into the building at the corner of Northwest 8th Street and 8th Avenue. His body was found slumped against the steering wheel, investigators said.
Witnesses, and another officer investigating an unrelated shooting in the area, all reported hearing a volley of gunfire that night.
One of the witnesses also was wounded in his left foot by a piece of stray bullet shrapnel, police later discovered.
Wilkerson and Neely, both local gang members according to witness statements, debt and were picked out of photographic line-ups and cellphone records showed both were in the vicinity of the fatal shooting at that time. Police also found one 9mm Luger shell casing under a car and a bullet slug that had been fired, court records show.
Neely was arrested Saturday and charged with tampering with evidence and being an accessory to murder after the fact. He was released Sunday on bonds totaling $10,000, records show.
Wilkerson was arrested Sunday, charged with second degree murder and remains jailed without bond.