An alleged rival gang encounter led up to a fatal shooting involving two underage suspects and two underage victims near Virginia and 15th Street just after midnight on Tuesday morning, according to court documents obtained by 2 News.
Reno police said on Wednesday that they have taken 17-year-old Stefan Howard into custody, but it’s unclear whether a second suspect, described as a white male juvenile, is under arrest or still on the loose.
Howard and the second suspect – both members of the 2’s, also known as K.O. – were in the lobby of the Fifteen 51 apartments on North Virginia street when LMT/RVN gang members walked in.
According to RPD’s probable cause document, in video surveillance footage, “Members of the suspect group can be seen pulling up their pants and adjusting their clothing, all of which are common pre-fight indicators.”
As Howard moved to exit the front door, investigators wrote that he “immediately (turned) around and (produced) a handgun from sweatshirt pocket and (fired) multiple times.”
He fled the scene, and minutes later, a second redacted suspect can be seen on video surveillance from a neighbor’s camera firing two shots toward the ground in a parking lot.
When police arrived on scene, they say they found two teenage boys with gunshot wounds, one in the lobby of the Fifteen 51 apartments where Howard fired his weapon, and a second in the parking lot where the redacted suspect fired toward the ground.
Both teens died of their injuries. This week, the Washoe County Medical Examiner identified them as 15-year-old Manuel Garcia and 17-year-old Santiago Rodriguez.
The same morning, RPD says officers followed Howard to his mother’s apartment and pulled him over in a traffic stop at 10 a.m.
When investigators confronted him with video surveillance footage, Howard told them the rival gang wanted to “jump” him, and his mother characterized the encounter as self-defense.
“Ultimately, at the conclusion of the interview, I informed Stefan that we was under arrest for murder and stepped out of the room leaving him and his mother. (She) asked Stefan, ‘You sad?’ and Stefan shook his head no and replied, ‘It is what it is,’” reads the probable cause.
2 News has reached out to RPD and is awaiting more information.
