Feb. 19, 2002 – One man was killed and another was wounded Monday night in a what St. Croix police are calling a robbery attempt at the Harborview Apartments.
Donald Lewis, 31, was killed and David Encarnacion, 22, was wounded when two individuals sprayed a group with a dozen gunshots, Police Chief Novelle Francis said Tuesday at a press conference. Lewis and Encarnacion, both Harborview residents, were among a group of people sitting outside an apartment building playing video games at about 10:30 p.m. Monday when they were shot, Francis said.
Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene about an hour after being struck in the forehead. Encarnacion was taken to Juan F. Luis Hospital with a neck wound. He later was transferred to a hospital in Puerto Rico.
Francis said the two assailants apparently had gone to the apartment building intending to commit a robbery. On their way out, they fired a volley of random shots, striking the two victims. Francis said police suspect the assailants' presence at the apartment complex had to do with a feud with a rival gang but that Lewis and Encarnacion were innocent bystanders.
The assailants fled in two separate vehicles, both of which were found abandoned later Monday night in the Sion Farm area, Francis said. He said investigators have good leads on the identity of both fugitives.
"We're hot on their trail and the police department is withholding the names at this time," he said.
Monday's homicide and wounding came just more than a week after one man was killed and another was wounded in separate incidents. Ray Seeles, 47, was fatally shot by an unknown assailant at the FNA Service Station across from Sunny Isle Shopping Center on Feb. 9. Later that day, George Bridgewater, 30, was wounded in the neck by a bullet while at the shopping center. According to police, Bridgewater was fastening his 4-month-old child into a car seat near Junior's Jewelry at about 7:15 p.m. that Saturday when what appeared to be random shots rang out in the parking lot of the busy shopping complex.
No suspects have been arrested in any of the incidents. Lewis's death on Monday is the third homicide on St. Croix this year and the sixth in the territory.
