TITUSVILLE, Fla. – A drive-by shooting Saturday night in Titusville left two people injured, and Brevard County deputies on Wednesday booked two of four suspects whom police said fired at least 75 shots at a passing car, records show.
Jayden Wright and Bryce Rios, both 18, make up half of the group who Titusville police said appear on surveillance video at a gas station on Harrison Street exiting a parked car and firing at a Kia Optima occupied by three women.
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The driver of the Kia was struck in her arm and back, leaving bullet fragments in her chest cavity and damaging her lung, police said. Her passenger sustained injuries to her back, arm, shoulder, ear and leg, according to police. The driver and passenger were hospitalized, police said, and the third occupant in the Kia was not injured.
In the gas station’s parking lot, 75 casings were collected, police said. The shooting left a nearby bank’s fence damaged, and police said at least six bullet holes and two projectiles were recovered from multiple residences on Harrison Street, with no reports of residents being physically harmed.
Leading up to the shooting, police said Wright was seen earlier that night at a popular social gathering area known as The Hill — the intersection of Whispering Hills Road and South Deleon Avenue — brandishing a firearm and getting into an argument with another man. When the unknown man left the area, police said the Kia Optima followed his vehicle. According to affidavits, Wright and three others then entered a car and drove to the gas station to prepare to shoot at the Kia as it drove west on Harrison Street. Rios would later tell police that he was in the car’s passenger seat.
On May 23, police said one of the victims identified Wright out of a photo lineup. Rios, after being arrested Wednesday on an unrelated warrant, was interviewed about the shooting and claimed that while he did fire a gun, he only did so two times because he heard gunshots and wanted to protect the people in his company.
Wright and Rios face charges of attempted murder and multiple counts of shooting into both an occupied vehicle and an occupied dwelling, records show. Rios faces an additional charge of fleeing and eluding a police officer, and every charge on the table for both men is a felony.