Files in Little Rock 2-year-old's killing trace gang carnage

LR toddler victim of feud, reports say

Larry Jackson, left, and Deshaun Rushing are shown in these Pulaski County sheriff's office photos.
Larry Jackson, left, and Deshaun Rushing are shown in these Pulaski County sheriff's office photos.

The night before a toddler was killed in a gang-related shooting while riding on her mother's lap in the back seat of a car, that same car was hit by gunfire in another Little Rock shooting, court records show.

A review of court documents and an investigative case file shows that 2-year-old Ramiya Reed, who was killed by a single shot on Nov. 22, was an innocent victim in a dispute between members of two Little Rock gangs, the Monroe Street Gang and the Murder Mafia Gang. Further, the records state that there have been several shootings involving suspected members of the two gangs or their relatives both before and after the toddler's death.

The victims in those shootings include a day care operator killed by a stray bullet and the two people who are charged in Ramiya's death.

Little Rock police say it is unclear how, or if, the shootings are related to Ramiya's death, even though the department reported in a memo earlier this year that her killing intensified a long-running feud between two rival gangs.

[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of Little Rock's 2016 killings]

Local and federal authorities have said gang activity has been a factor in a surge of violent crime in Little Rock over the past year. In July, a mass shooting at a downtown nightclub in Little Rock left 25 people injured by gunfire. Three others were injured while fleeing the second-story club, which has since been closed. The shootout punctuates a year in which the city has seen a 17 percent increase in violent crime, with 2,455 reported violent crimes through mid-September.

The nightclub shooting also sparked the formation of an FBI-led task force targeting gangs and violent crime, authorities have said.

Lt. Steve McClanahan, an agency spokesman, said that while many of the same people show up in police reports, it's difficult to determine which incidents are connected, because uncooperative victims and witnesses leave police to speculate on the motives behind the violence.

"It's more difficult for us to make an arrest and ... stop that cycle of violence because no one is telling us what happened," he said.

THE 'HOT' CAMRY

Little Rock police have arrested Deshaun Malik Rushing, 21, and Larry Jackson, 17, in Ramiya's death. Each has been charged with capital murder and six counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle. Jackson has a December trial date while Rushing's is scheduled for February.

In May, police obtained arrest warrants after the toddler's mother, Rokiya Williams, told police that Jackson and Rushing each had a pistol and were in the vehicle from which the fatal shot was fired, according to an affidavit.

Court documents state that Jackson and Rushing are members of the Monroe Street Gang, a group Little Rock police also has linked to a double shooting this summer. The gang is also known as the Monroe Street Hustlers.

The case file claims that two of Ramiya's relatives -- 19-year-old Zhraequon "Quon" Johnson and Malik Bethley -- are members of the Murder Mafia Gang.

Shunta Johnson, a cousin of Ramiya's mother, told police that she was driving a Toyota Camry on South Harrison Street on Nov. 22 when shots were fired from another vehicle as they turned at an intersection, according to the affidavit. Ramiya was on her mother's lap at the time of the shooting, wearing a Minnie Mouse T-shirt and a Hello Kitty hoodie adorned with polka dots.

During the interview, Shunta Johnson told police that her sons -- Zhraequon Johnson and Bethley -- had been having problems with the Monroe Street Gang, according to the affidavit.

She also told police that the same Camry had been shot at the night before Ramiya's death. Bethley later told detectives that he was the one driving when someone shot at the car, according to the affidavit.

At UAMS Medical Center after Ramiya's shooting, a Little Rock detective reported that an unidentified woman approached a relative of Ramiya's and asked why the baby was in the car.

"You'all knew that car was hot, why that baby in the car if it's hot?" the woman said, according to the file.

The court documents said Ramiya's mother initially did not provide any description of suspects.

Then in May, Rokiya Williams went to the Major Crimes Division and told detectives that she did see people in the other vehicle during the shooting, according to the affidavit.

The court documents said Williams identified Jackson, Rushing and Kaylon Robinson as being in the vehicle carrying the gunmen. She said Jackson and Rushing each had a pistol, but she did not see Robinson with a gun, according to the documents.

Williams told police that she did not provide the information earlier out of fear that the suspects would harm her, her other children and her family.

Jackson agreed to give a recorded statement to Little Rock detectives after officials brought him to Arkansas from Texas, where he had been arrested in a case unrelated to Ramiya's death.

According to the affidavit, Jackson told police that he and Rushing were members of the Monroe Street Gang, and stated that both of them "had been having problems with Quon Johnson who is in a rival gang," according to the affidavit.

"[Quon] Johnson shot at Jackson's sister's house as well as Rushing's [mother's] house prior to the shooting of the two year old," according to the affidavit.

According to a transcript of the interview, Jackson said he and Quon Johnson used to be good friends.

"We was real close friends like growing up and then once we both like moved to Little Rock he, he was on his side and I kinda went with this side," Jackson said.

Jackson told police that Rushing called him the night the toddler was fatally shot. During the conversation, Rushing said he had "messed up and had done something he could not take back," according to the affidavit.

According to Jackson, they met in person a day or two later. He told police that Rushing said he had killed the toddler, according to the affidavit.

"[Rushing] told Jackson that he was driving down the street and thought he saw Quon [Johnson] in a car so he started shooting and then drove off. He did not realize until later who had been shot," according to the court documents.

According to the affidavit, Rushing told Jackson that he was driving a white Mitsubishi Eclipse during the shooting, a vehicle Rushing had previously picked up from a "crackhead."

The documents said that Rushing told Jackson he burned the vehicle in Interstate Park west of Arch Street and north of Interstate 30. Hours after the fatal shooting on Nov. 22, Little Rock police found a Mitsubishi Eclipse in Interstate Park. A police report said the vehicle had been set on fire and burned.

"Mr. Jackson had information that only someone involved in incident would know," according to the affidavit.

HOUSES IN CROSS HAIRS

During the investigation, authorities connected the spent 9mm shell casings found at the South Harrison Street homicide to evidence found at the scene of a shooting on Nov. 15, in which a vehicle was hit but nobody was injured, the documents said.

A cellphone belonging to Rushing was found at the scene of the Nov. 15 shooting, according to the court documents. Jackson also told police that Rushing said he had fired a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun during the fatal shooting, the affidavit said.

The day after Ramiya's death, her relative Malik Bethley was grazed by a bullet during a shootout outside the Sharks Fish and Chicken at 3323 Fair Park Blvd., according to a homicide case file. Police reported that investigators found about 40 shell casings at the scene.

Months before Ramiya's death, in June 2016, her relative Zhraequon Johnson was shot in the buttocks, according to a report. A witness said a person in a white pickup had shot at Johnson outside his residence at 3320 Longcoy St., according to the report.

Rushing and Jackson were both shot in the months after Ramiya's death.

In April, Rushing was hit by a bullet in a drive-by shooting on Park Lane. The gunfire also killed 60-year-old Shirley Jackson, who ran a day care down the street from where Rushing was shot, police said. She was not the target of the shooting, authorities said.

Before his arrest in May, Rushing's listed residence at 28 Barbara Circle has been shot at multiple times in the past year, police reports show.

Last year, on Halloween night, Little Rock police responded to the home after the family inside heard gunfire outside, according to the report. Two vehicles had been hit with gunfire, and resident Michael Rushing told police that bullets had hit multiple windows along with the front door, the report said. Authorities said they found almost 25 spent shell casings at the scene.

On Jan. 21, Little Rock officers again were called to the residence, where resident Angela Rushing told police bullets had hit a bedroom window and the side of the house multiple times, the report said. In front of the residence, police found 16 shell casings, the report said.

Months later, on April 24, police were again called to the same Barbara Circle residence for a report of a shooting, according to a police report.

Michael Rushing, 55, told police that his daughter-in-law Tiffany Rushing, 27, of Little Rock, was shot just after she loaded her three children into a white Jeep outside the residence. The children were between 2 and 9 years old, according to the report.

Michael Rushing told police that people in two vehicles had driven by the residence and opened fire "at him and his family."

He also told police he saw the vehicles drive by slowly a few times before the shooting. The report said investigators found about 35 spent shell casings at the scene.

'LONG-RUNNING FEUD'

In April, Police Chief Kenton Buckner reported in a memo to City Manager Bruce Moore that Ramiya's death intensified a long-running feud between two rival gangs, contributing to a spike in violence in the west-central part of the city.

In his memo to Moore, Buckner identified those involved in the long-running feud as "gangs." Days later, Moore sent a memo to city leaders that used much of the same language included in Buckner's memo. Instead, Moore's memo identified the people involved in the feud as "groups" and "parties," instead of as "gangs."

Buckner's memo also included a sentence about a gang-related homicide earlier this year, a line not included in the memo sent by Moore.

In a written statement Tuesday, Moore said intelligence in these cases can change on an almost daily basis.

"My memorandum to the City Board was approximately a week later and that is the information I had at the time," he wrote.

Buckner said that while current gang members operate in a different way than past generations, Little Rock continues to see a large number of gangs.

"They are extremely violent, they've been here for decades and they have not gone anywhere," he said.

Late in the night on Nov. 22, after Ramiya had been fatally shot, Little Rock homicide detective Tommy Hudson spoke with a relative of Ramiya, who said he didn't know what the dispute was about.

"But I had talked to 'em (inaudible) they need to squash that s*** cause they gonna get -- get they momma hurt or they little sisters hurt you know," according to a transcript of the interview.

"Well, they were successful," said Hudson, who is now a part-time cold-case detective. "They got their cousin killed."

Metro on 09/22/2017

Upcoming Events