Police have arrested a 19-year-old woman they say was an accomplice to motorway gunman Stephen McDonald in the lead up to the fatal police shooting of a young south Auckland courier driver.
Arrested were James Hill, 19 and 18-year-old Markese Jones. The pair were charged with criminal possession of a weapon and Jones was additionally charged with unlawfully wearing a body vest police say he had on when he was stopped. As of late Wednesday night, both were still being held at the Schenectady County Jail. The third male, whose name is not being released due to his name, faces juvenile offender charges.City police spokesman Sgt. Eric Clifford confirmed Wednesday that investigators found a gun at the scene of the the crime - the former Tip Toe Inn on Altamont Avenue in Mont Pleasant - where Jumez Lee was fatally shot in the head early Sunday morning during a private party. Police are doing ballistics testing on the weapon, Clifford said. Police said Lee, 24, whose death marked Schenectady's first homicide of 2009, used the City Mission on Hamilton Street as his address. A 26-year-old woman also was shot by the unidentified gunman who walked into the party and opened fire. She was being treated at Albany Medical Center Hospital and her name is being withheld by police.Lt. Micheal Brown, a Rotterdam Police Department spokesman, said Wednesday night that a man had reported two guns, a .45 caliber and Glock stolen from his vehicle. He did not know if the man was a Rotterdam resident and could not confirm media reports that he is a state corrections officer.Meantime, police are beefing up patrols of neighborhoods plagued by gun crime.For fear of undermining their efforts, the department is releasing few details of their plan, except that it involves teaming up with state troopers. In the past few days, however, they have made several arrests and recovered five loaded handguns.Just Tuesday night, three men were arrested on gun possession charges after a Schenectady cop heard one of them fire the weapon in the Mont Pleasant neighborhood.
The police say that the motive for the shooting looks like a settling of scores. But it is still unclear if Keogh was shot as part of a dispute with drug dealers based on the Costa del Sol, or if he was targeted by an Irish drugs gang with whom he was in dispute before he left Ireland with his wife and children just over a year ago. In November, 2007, Keogh was putting his rubbish out for collection when a gunman fired at least five shots at him as his wife and two-year-old son looked on. He was wounded in the shoulder and arm but managed to run back into the safety of his home. Keogh is said to have been a significant player in the drugs trade in Benalmadena. The relative who was with him the night of the shooting has been arrested as he is wanted in Ireland.Government subdelegate to Malaga Hilario Lopez said that this kind of reprisal happens among criminals but citizens should not be worried because they are isolated incidents.