Cops: Nine-time felon faces attempted murder charges
RIVIERA BEACH — A convicted gunman is back behind bars after shooting two people this month, according to Riviera Beach police records.
Kevin Monroe, 27, was arrested Tuesday afternoon in the Sept. 9 shootings on West 28th Street that left a woman critically injured and a man with a gunshot wound to the calf, according to the arrest report.
He is in the Palm Beach County Jail on attempted murder and weapons charges without the possibility of posting bond, per Judge Dina Keever-Agrama’s orders, despite his attorney’s pleas.
He has two children and another on the way, the defense attorney said. The Sept. 9 shooting may have stemmed from an altercation involving one of Monroe’s children, according to police.
Police records indicate a blue van slowly drove east on West 28th Street, northwest of the intersection of West Blue Heron Boulevard and Broadway, at about 1 p.m. Sept. 9. That night, Palm Beach County began to feel the effects of Hurricane Irma. The rear passenger door of the van was open, police records indicate, and a man started firing at people outside a home. Investigators found more than 40 spent shell casings on the street and in a nearby car.
A woman stumbled into the nearby home for help. She had been shot in the hip, police said, and the bullet traveled near her heart, causing severe internal injuries. She and a man were taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach for treatment.
Police pinned the shooting to the West Palm Beach man known to most only as “Monroe.” He has been a person of interest in multiple Riviera Beach shootings, according to an arrest report for a 2015 drive-by shooting in which he was sentenced to a year in prison.
He was most recently released from state custody in January 2016, state records show, and was in prison from July 2012 through January 2014 on drug- and firearm-related offenses. Police records indicate he is a nine-time convicted felon.