Dayton Police previously said they are investigating groups responsible for a number of violent crimes inside the city.
“Over the past few weeks multiple individuals divided roughly into two groups have been associated with multiple felonious assaults, shootings into habitation and one homicide,” Lt. Col. Matt Carper said during a press conference late last week. “A majority of this violent crime involves continued back and forth retaliation over a recent homicide.”
Dayton police said the shooting of a 17-year-old boy last Wednesday was one of those incidents. That investigation led to an officer-involved shooting. Police were searching for another 17-year-old suspected in the original shooting.
In the fatal crash that occurred on Wednesday evening in Riverside, three teens were killed and one was arrested after police said a failed carjacking led to a two-vehicle fatal crash.
An investigation into the fatal crash revealed the incident began in the Auto Zone parking lot at the Airway Shopping Center, according to police.
The boys reportedly attempted to steal a 2008 Mazda from a 33-year-old Dayton man, police reported. The man did not comply, according to the police statement, and the teens fled in another vehicle, a 2005 Jeep Cherokee reported stolen out of Dayton on Tuesday, toward Airway Road.
The man followed the boys, trying to get the Cherokee’s license plate. People in the car shot at the Dayton man, but he was not hit, according to police. The two vehicles eventually crashed, and the vehicle the boys were in hit a tree.
Ja’Sean Davis, 15, Da’Real Wilson, 14, and Ronald White, 16, were all killed. A fourth teen is now charged in Montgomery County Juvenile Court with aggravated robbery. It is unclear exactly how the fatal crash and the rash of violent crime in Dayton and beyond are connected.
“It is very concerning to see the number of juveniles who have been committing violent and serious crimes using firearms,” Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. told the Dayton Daily News. “It is also very alarming to see the number of juveniles who have been victims of these violent acts.”
He commended local police for their investigations into the incidents.
“I would also encourage the citizens of our community to assist law enforcement by contacting them and providing information to investigators,” the prosecutor said.
Juveniles have had several encounters with criminal activity over the last several weeks. It is still unclear exactly which incidents are connected to each other, but investigators are still looking into the shooting death of 16-year-old Kamareon D. O’Berry who was shot on April 18 near Westwood Elementary School.
Also, the shooting death of 15-year-old J’Yon Kolby-Lee Manson-Coleman, who was killed in Harrison Twp. last week, is under investigation.
And on Sunday evening, a juvenile girl was playing outside a Harrison Twp. home with other kids when she was grazed by a bullet on her forehead and hand. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Monday investigators responded to the 1900 block of Palisades Drive and learned there was a large fight in the area before the shooting.
The child was transported to Children Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries and the Montgomery County Special Investigations Unit is looking into the case.
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