A teen’s dying words on a west Phoenix playground helped police arrest the two men accused of shooting him.
Sincere D’Andre Venson, 17, told the officers responding to gunshots just after midnight on Sept. 8 the names of two men: Joshua Armstrong and Luis Gonzalez.
Officers found the victim near 83rd Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road wounded in his leg, arm and torso shortly after midnight.
Venson died from his wounds at a hospital about an hour later, according to police.
Armstrong and Gonzalez, both 18, were arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder and armed robbery on Sept. 9, according to court documents.
Venson was able to describe the suspect’s car and give police access to his cell phone that had one of their cell phone numbers.
Police found
video from near the shooting site showing that just before midnight Venson, Armstrong and Gonzalez, as well as two unnamed people, were walking toward the park, according to a court document.
Shortly afterward, all except Venson were seen on the video running back to a black sedan. Gonzalez was seen running with a black-and-silver firearm, according to the document.
On Sept. 9, a defense attorney called the Maricopa County Attorney's Office saying his client had been in the black sedan and was now receiving threats from the shooting suspects about talking to the police, according to court documents.
Both that witness and the other unnamed witness in the car identified Armstrong as the shooter and Gonzalez as the other member of the group.
Both described the shooting as unprovoked.
Gonzalez and Armstrong were each booked into a Maricopa County jail with cash bond set at $1 million apiece. They were scheduled to return to court Sept. 16, according to online court records.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dying teen gives police details about 2 men accused of shooting him
