LAKELAND, Fla. – Officials of all levels of government gathered Wednesday in Polk County to announce federal charges related to a drive-by shooting that injured 11 people late last month in Lakeland.
A news conference that afternoon featured U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida Roger Handberg, Lakeland police Chief Sam Taylor, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and District 10 State Attorney Brian Haas as speakers. The group took it in turns to go through the shooting investigation day-by-day in a timeline format, describing four arrests, two persons of interest and one death.
“It’s been a long two weeks, little over two weeks since the shooting occurred. There’s been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, a lot of investigation, a lot of man hours, over 50 search warrants have been served, thousands of of pieces of evidence have been processed, we’ve flown evidence all over the country to be processed,” said Taylor, thanking those so far involved.
The shooting occurred on Jan. 30 near Iowa Avenue North and Plum Street, where three victims — all men between 20-35 years old — were located and hospitalized, two with critical injuries, police said. The rest of the victims were reportedly self-transported with non-life-threatening injuries.
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Of the three men who were found at the scene, one had been shot in the abdomen and another in the face, Taylor said in January. At the conference Wednesday, Taylor said those two victims were still in the hospital, with all the rest having since been released.
Though a motive behind the shooting isn’t crystal clear, Taylor on Wednesday said investigators’ most well-founded theory involves retaliation for an unpaid drug debt.
The shooting prompted a manhunt, and an up-to $5,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest in the case. The next day, a sedan that Lakeland police believe was used in the shooting turned up; investigators said Wednesday that the car had been occupied by five people during the shooting and was on its way to a scrapyard after the fact.
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The first arrest happened Feb. 1, that of 26-year-old Booker Green. According to Taylor, Green was tasked with getting rid of the vehicle and faces a charge of felony evidence tampering.
At a news conference on Feb. 6, Judd announced the death of Alex Greene, a 21-year-old who the sheriff said had been under surveillance by Lakeland detectives, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in relation to the shooting.
According to Judd, Greene attempted to flee law enforcement in a pickup truck with officers in pursuit. Lakeland police disabled the truck with a PIT maneuver around Havendale Boulevard in Winter Haven, from which Greene went on to carjack an elderly woman and drive that car toward a Lakeland police captain, officials said. Greene died at a hospital after the officer shot him six times.
“Our information is he (Greene) provided the weapons and modified the weapons that were used in the shooting,” Taylor said.
Later, on Feb. 7, a man named Nicholas Hansen was charged via a federal complaint related to the shooting alleging he possessed ammunition as a felon. Three days later on Feb. 9, similar charges were brought against Marcus Mobley Jr., accused of possessing ammunition and a firearm as a felon, officials said. Both men have since had their first appearances in Tampa and were both ordered detained pending trial.
“Mr. Mobley — he’s the registered owner of the vehicle and he was the one that arranged to have the vehicle transported...and the reason it was on a record was he had asked the gentleman that we arrested also (Booker Green) to take it to a junkyard to be dumped, to be destroyed. So we caught it just in time,” Haas said.
Lastly, the group discussed the arrest of a 15-year-old boy believed to have been in the car at the time of the shooting, facing discrete charges of being a delinquent in possession of ammunition and a firearm, respective second-degree and first-degree felonies.
Two persons of interest were discussed, Brent Johnson, 19, and Marquez Green, 28, who investigators would like to meet in person, Taylor said.
“We would ask for the public’s help locating those two individuals. We believe one (Johnson) may be staying in Bartow and the other one (Green), we’re not really sure where he’s at, possibly in Lakeland,” Taylor said.
Judd used his time at the conference to talk about a new multi-agency task force — the Violent Gang Investigative Task Force — which he characterized less as a more-boots-on-the-ground operation and more of a coordination of “boots” already trawling the state.
“We started a gang investigative task force last year because we saw an uptick in gang-related shootings and drive-by shootings, and to put this in perspective, it’s important to understand that in 2017 we had two, 2018 we had four, 2019 we had six, last year we had 59,” Judd said. “... There are people that are going to watch your news program and think, ‘Well, I got away with this in the past.’ Oh, maybe you did, because racketeering takes in past criminal conduct, and we have all of you that are involved in this under investigation right now. So pack up your bags, get your favorite pillow, we’re going to put you in jail.”
According to Judd, before this latest shooting investigation began, he and Haas talked about his sheriff’s office working in tandem with federal partners in order to hit criminals involved in gang-related activities with any and all charges possible. As such, the arrested individuals discussed in this story currently face federal charges, yet local charges will soon be filed as well.
“We will have our organizational meeting at the first of the week where I will make special deputies of the city police officers so they have jurisdiction in the unincorporated county as well as in the cities. We’ll work with teams and we will bring these active shooters under control,” Judd said.
See Wednesday’s news conference again in the media player below:
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