With a suspect in custody, the Delaware Police Department continues to investigate the events that led up to the city's first murder in nearly seven years.
Officers responded to a report of a shooting shortly before 7 p.m. Jan. 25 at a residence in the 900 block of Stratford Road. They arrived and found Ali Al Azirjawi, 28, of Hilliard dead from multiple gunshot wounds, according to police reports.
Officers arrested Bryan S. Pemberton, 33, of Stratford Road at the scene without incident, reports said. Pemberton was arraigned on a charge of murder, a first-degree felony, Jan. 26 in Delaware Municipal Court, where a judge set Pemberton's bond at $5 million.
A Delaware County grand jury Feb. 1 indicted Pemberton on a charge of aggravated murder with a firearm specification, an unclassified felony, according to Delaware County court records.
A date for Pemberton's arraignment had not been set by ThisWeek's Feb. 1 press deadline.
Delaware police Capt. Adam Moore said the victim went to the scene of the shooting with a woman who previously had a child with Pemberton.
According to the Delaware Police Department, investigators believe the victim was at the residence for a child-custody exchange.
Moore said neither the woman nor two children who were at the scene of the shooting were physically injured.
The woman and an employee of a nearby business made calls to 911 after the shooting. The woman, who identified herself as the victim's fiancee, told an emergency dispatcher the man who shot her fiance is the father of one of her children.
An employee of a business in the 1100 block of Columbus Pike also placed a 911 call. He told a dispatcher a woman ran into the business through a side door and yelled that a man had shot her fiance.
Moore on Jan. 31 said the investigation into the relationships among those at the scene of the shooting and the events that led up to it continues.
"There's a lot of work to do still," he said.
Moore said officers previously arrested Pemberton at the residence in 2011 after receiving a report of domestic violence. The case eventually was dismissed, according to court records.
Last month's murder was the first in the city of Delaware since March 14, 2011. In that case, George McArthur, 24, was fatally shot at his home in the 700 block of Liberty Road after a disagreement with his roommate, Joel E. Sellers, 24.
Sellers was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced in 2012 to 10 years in prison.
tgallick@thisweeknews.com
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