Fatal shooting near Dunkin Donuts in Portsmouth appears to have been targeted, court documents say
Police received a call about shots fired just before 5 p.m. on April 11 on Turnpike Road, near Dunkin Donuts and an ABC store. Upon arrival, officers found Ja’Son Randolph with gunshot wounds to his chest, leg and shoulder. He was laying on the sidewalk in front of Dunkin Donuts, police said, and attempts to save his life were unsuccessful.
Court documents say police found 11 .233-caliber casings in front of the ABC store, and a Ford Explorer near the scene had bullet holes on its rear bumper.
Police looked at surveillance footage from the apartment complex across the street from the shooting, the documents say, and saw a gray Honda Accord with a black bumper entering the complex about the same time Randolph walked across the street to a smoke shop at the same shopping center.
“The victim is seen exiting the smoke shop and walking on the sidewalk in front of the vehicle, at which point the passenger of the vehicle exits and fires several rounds at the victim as he runs to the area where he is discovered by police,” the criminal complaint reads. “The vehicle then exits the parking lot headed north on Frederick Boulevard. The vehicle and occupants of the vehicle appear to be laying in wait for the victim.”
Court documents said police also obtained surveillance from a different apartment complex, on High Street, that showed the gray Honda enter about two minutes after police received the call about gunshots. In the video, the passenger gets out of the vehicle, heads toward a breezeway and begins speaking to another person while “making motions of firing a rifle, pantomiming the shooting,” the criminal complaint reads. The driver of the vehicle also got out and walked to the same breezeway. A third person exited the back seat and stayed near the car.
The next day, police impounded the suspected vehicle, and during a search, officers found a Walmart receipt, according to the documents. After obtaining footage from the Walmart location on the receipt, police say an individual in the footage was wearing the same clothes as the passenger in the apartment complex video.
Four days after the shooting, detectives spoke to a “concerned citizen” who identified the driver as 22-year-old Dejuan Weston. Police say the citizen had a recorded conversation with Weston about his alleged involvement in the shooting. Weston allegedly identified the shooter as Deterryo Harris, and court documents say police identified the two in the Walmart footage and the apartment complex footage.
Police announced charges against the two men April 25. Both will have preliminary hearings in Portsmouth General District Court on July 14.
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com