EVERETT — Police in Texas have arrested a man suspected of a mass shooting that injured four people last month at an apartment in south Everett.
Moses Malachi Brewer, 20, of Tacoma, was charged in Snohomish County Superior Court on Dec. 12 with four counts of first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm. His girlfriend, 19, of Tacoma, was charged with first-degree rendering criminal assistance.
Both were taken into custody Thursday and now face extradition to Washington.
On Nov. 21, they drove to Everett in a small group for a candlelight vigil, according to charging papers. Brewer reportedly mentioned he wanted to buy Percocet, and one of his friends took them to an apartment in the 100 block of West Casino Road, not far from Horizon Elementary School.
Court papers say Brewer and the friend went into the apartment shortly before 3 a.m. Those inside reported that, after a few minutes of talking and joking, the friend bent down to pick up cigarettes off the floor and Brewer, unprovoked, allegedly shot him in the back of the neck. Then he unloaded on three other men inside the apartment, charging papers say.
One man suffered six gunshot wounds, another was shot in the knee, and the third man was shot at least twice, prosecutors wrote.
The friend who was shot in the neck was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. At the time the charges were written, he was still intubated and suffered “significant brain issues.”
A witness reported seeing Brewer leave the apartment with a handgun, while saying he had run out of bullets. He and his girlfriend drove a red Toyota 4Runner to the other side of the apartment, just as Everett police officers arrived. Security footage reportedly showed them getting out of the vehicle, jumping a fence and running. Police searched the neighborhood for hours, but didn’t find the suspects.
Everett detectives found 11 bullet casings near the apartment door and identified Brewer through witness statements, as well as the distinctive tattoos on his neck and face. Police noticed two bullet holes in the Toyota’s windshield, but weren’t sure if they were from that night or from a different incident.
Brewer’s girlfriend later told the registered owner of the Toyota that the vehicle had been stolen, according to charging papers. Prosecutors called the move “an obvious attempt to distance herself and Brewer, her boyfriend, from being associated with the vehicle at the time of the crime.”
At some point, they fled the state. On Thursday, after arrest warrants were signed, law enforcement in the Houston area brought Brewer and his girlfriend into custody.
In charging papers, prosecutors requested Brewer’s bail be set at $2 million and his girlfriend’s at $500,000.
Brewer is also being investigated for a shooting in Tacoma. He’s been convicted of seven felonies as a juvenile and as an adult, including first-degree theft, second-degree assault, residential burglary and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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