Second person arrested and charged in Tacoma apartment shooting that left four injured
A month after a July 3 shooting in front of a South Tacoma apartment left four people injured, a second suspect has been arrested and charged for his role in the incident.
18-year-old Maleik Alexander Rosa was arrested by Tacoma Police officers last Thursday and charged by Pierce County Superior Court the following day for six felony charges: four counts of assault in the first degree, one count of drive-by shooting and one charge of unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree.
According to charging documents, the shooting was the aftermath of prolonged disagreements between two tenants of an apartment near the 3300 block of South Asotin Street. 35-year-old Ronnay C. Scott, who was arrested in July on similar charges to Rosa, and a 26-year-old tenant both told officers they were fighting with each other just prior to the shooting.
When the 26-year-old woman went to Scott’s apartment to raise issues about his children, Scott answered the door holding a butter knife. The woman knocked the butter knife out of Scott’s hand, and the two pushed, grabbed and shoved each other until the 26-year-old’s mother broke up the fight.
According to the 26-year-old, after they were separated, Scott said she had “something for her.” Scott then drove her two children away from the complex and returned with others in the car, including Rosa. According to the documents, witness accounts of how many people were in the car vary between three and five individuals but were consistent that they were wearing ski masks and openly shot at the the family of the 26-year-old’s mother.
The bullets hit four people near the apartment complex: the mother was shot in the foot; her son, who had come to defend the mother, was shot in the hip; a pregnant woman was shot in her hip and thigh; and another man was shot in his abdomen. It is unclear from the charging documents whether the suspects were inside or outside the car when they shot the four victims.
Soon afterwards, an apartment camera recorded two individuals shooting bullets a few blocks away on Alaska Street. While it is unclear who they were aiming at, the bullets struck two windows of a minivan parked nearby. In an email to The News Tribune, Pierce County spokesperson Adam Faber said detectives are still investigating whether the same people were involved in both incidents.
When Scott was arrested and interrogated in July, she identified her sister and Rosa as the two other people in her car wearing ski masks. In addition to claiming that she acted out of self defense after being assaulted, Scott told Tacoma police detectives that she had hoped that the trio would stop at beating up the 26-year-old; she did not expect guns to be involved in an altercation. Faber said Scott’s sister is being actively investigated for her role in the shooting.
During the investigation, detectives discovered that Rosa, who was already a suspect in three prior Tacoma shootings this year, had fled the state to Georgia. He returned to Washington in early August, and police spotted him entering the driver’s seat of a car last Thursday. A vehicle chase ensued and ended when police trapped Rosa’s car. The charging documents indicate that he refused to speak with authorities upon being arrested.
A superior court judge has set Rosa’s bail at $1 million. His jury trial is set to begin Sept. 22.
