Suspect charged in Arizona highway shootings, held on $1 million bond 2





David Schwartz, Reuters

Saturday, September 19, 2015 10:34:01 EDT PM


PHOENIX - A 21-year-old man arrested in connection with a spate of shootings along a major highway through Arizona made his initial court appearance on Saturday and said authorities had "the wrong guy."

Leslie Allen Merritt Jr of the Phoenix suburb of Glendale faces a range of charges that include four counts each of drive-by shooting, intentional acts of terrorism and aggravated assault involving a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.

Merritt was arrested on Friday evening as he entered a Wal-Mart store in Glendale with a woman and a 5-year-old child, said Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves.

Authorities had been monitoring him for most of the day.

Wearing gray and white prison stripes, Merritt on Saturday made his initial appearance before a commissioner in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix.

He denied involvement in the shootings that began on Aug. 29 and have generated fear among motorists in Phoenix, the nation's sixth most populous city.

"All I have to say is that I'm the wrong guy. I tried telling the detective that," said Merritt, who said he has two children.

"My gun's been in the pawn shop for the last two months. I haven't even had access to a weapon," he added.

Authorities have been investigating 11 possible vehicle shootings in Arizona, mostly on a 10-mile (16-km) stretch of Interstate 10 through Phoenix.

A 13-year-old girl with a slight cut to her ear is the only person injured in the spate of attacks.

Merritt, who has a criminal record for minor offenses, is suspected in the first four vehicle shootings that took place on Aug. 29 and Aug. 30.

Authorities have said a gun Merritt owned was "forensically linked" to the shootings. On Saturday, Graves revealed at a news conference that investigators found the weapon, a handgun, after canvassing pawn shops throughout the area.

Bullets shot from a handgun the investigators discovered at one shop matched fragments from some of the shootings, linking those to Merritt, Graves said.

He would not say how long the gun was at the pawn shop.

Graves said the investigation continues and reiterated that police still believe copycats could have carried out some of the other attacks.

He said authorities are still offering a $50,000 reward for information on the shootings and freeway message boards will continue to display a hotline number for tips.

Graves said there is no known motive for the attacks.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2015/09/19/suspect-charged-in-arizona-highway-shootings-held-on-1-million-bond

interesting ,,, more as the story develops,,,,,

Well it is a little surprising there is any confusion on who was in control of the weapon used, insofar as checking the pawn dates on file. This should be dead simple unless the record keeping at the shop was lousy.

We should know from any log book kept, the date the weapon comes in and goes out. Is there video surveillance in the shop? The cops say the shooter only pawned the gun two days before they arrested him, and he says two months. Check the tapes or the pawn slip.

Second, if crime show TV has taught us anything, you don't match up bullet fragments. They can only give you information on the composition of ammunition used. How much lead, type of copper cladding (if any), the composition of the lead. A 9mm is an extremely common round. If for example it was from a Glock 9mm, there could be hundreds or even thousands of Glocks in that city in 9mm.

You would need enough of the bullets recovered at the crime scenes to match the lands and grooves of a particular gun. In the case of Glocks, the firing pins also leave a very distinct mark, however as I understand it,the shooter(s) policed their brass, leaving no shell casings behind.

You can't match a single land or a single groove and say only one gun creates that mark. You usually need the entire circumference of the round being tested for a match. All a fragment could tell you is that if it was actually a metallurgical match, that the bullets you have could be from the same lot #. So there could be 1,000's of rounds with the same lot# on the box. That means people all over the country, or even several people in your city could also have the same ammunition in their guns.

Since this guy can't afford a top shelf lawyer, they haven't made motions to see this evidence against him as yet. Usually though DA's do not want to lay charges unless they feel there is a very strong chance of conviction, so there will need to be other pieces of evidence such as the movement of the suspect, video of the vehicle, or eyewitness accounts of the vehicle in certain locations at certain times. Maybe he books off work, or doesn't come in at all on days/nights of shootings. People who say they heard him brag about it, or make comments like he knows a little too much about the subject.

Should be interesting if anything else happens while he's in custody, or if the shootings stop cold turkey.