Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, say two teens have been charged in the fatal shooting of a 73-year-old man at an ATM last fall, including a then-16-year-old police say pulled the trigger during a “night of crime” across Northern Virginia.
The accused shooter, who is now 17, has been charged as a juvenile with felony murder and robbery resulting in the death of another person and was not publicly identified at a news conference Monday afternoon announcing the arrests.
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said the teen is being held on unrelated criminal charges in Baltimore County but expected him to be extradited to Virginia and eventually be charged as an adult.
Another teen, 19-year-old Timothy Kashaun Bradshaw, has been charged with felony murder and robbery resulting in the death of another person. Davis said Bradshaw, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, was behind the wheel of a stolen car and acted as the getaway driver.
At Monday’s news conference, Fairfax County police were joined by family members of Nelson Alexander, who was standing in front of a Wells Fargo ATM in Falls Church early in the morning on Oct. 20, when he was shot “in cold blood,” Davis said.
The shooting was captured on the ATM surveillance video. It showed a masked figure come up behind Alexander as he stood at the ATM. The video showed Alexander dropping his wallet in surprise, then turning to apparently tap out his PIN on the ATM when, for no apparent reason, the gunman opened fire, shooting Alexander once in the chest.
“Mr. Alexander never, never once resisted, not even a hint of resistance,” Davis said.
Alexander, who was known among friends and family as “Cooty Bird,” was discovered by a passerby and taken to the hospital, where he died three days later.
Alexander’s niece, Kendra Johnson, who spoke at the new conference on behalf of his family recalled her “Uncle Bird,” as a loving man who would have celebrated his 74th birthday a few weeks ago.
“He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved everyone that he knew,” she said.
She said the family members were “overjoyed” when police called to give them news of the arrest and she thanked detectives for their work. She asked for continued prayers for the family.
A $10,000 reward from Fairfax Count police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was offered, and police said tips from the public were instrumental in identifying the suspects.
Authorities also thanked neighboring police departments for their help, in particular Metro Transit Police. Surveillance video from a Metrobus near Seven Corners Shopping Center showed the two teens and another young man boarding the bus several hours before Alexander was killed. (Police said Monday the third young man seen in the bus video was not involved in the shooting.)
“Our detectives worked tirelessly on this case, tracking our suspects from this bus,” said Major Ed O’Carroll, bureau chief of the police department’s major crimes bureau.
O’Carroll said investigators were able to piece together a timeline from the video footage, showing the suspects in Alexander’s killing traveled from the Tyson’s area of Fairfax County to Alexandria, where they stole a 2009 Nissan Murano and headed back north.
“It was a night of crime. It was an entire night of crime,” O’Carroll said.
He added, “We know where they were throughout the night. We know they’re breaking into cars, and at 5:20 in the morning, they made a horrible mistake.”
