HOUSTON – The suspect wanted in the fatal shooting of a Texas Southern University student was arrested Friday night after a SWAT standoff in north Houston.
According to Houston police, Jartis Leon LeBlanc Jr. was taken into custody around 11:30 p.m. after he barricaded himself inside a home on Knox near Homer.
Authorities said SWAT surrounded the house, started talking to him over their speakers, and he surrendered peacefully.
LeBlanc has been charged with murder. He is accused of shooting and killing Brent Randall, and wounding his brother, Lawrence Flowers, in retaliation for a shooting after a basketball game the night before.
According to court documents, Randall, a TSU freshman, and Flowers were involved in a basketball game against another group on Oct. 8. The teams were playing for money, and Randall's team won.
LeBlanc was supposed to turn himself in Thursday with the help of community activist, Quanell X, but that didn't happen.
"What I can say is that he does want to turn his self in, he's afraid for his life, he's afraid that if law enforcement comes up on him, they may want to do something to him," said Quanell.
Witnesses said a crowd was later gathered at the Courtyard Apartments on Blodgett, an off-campus TSU housing facility, when an argument erupted over the basketball game. During the argument, someone began shooting.
Derrick White, who had been playing against Randall's team, was shot in the right leg. He was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital for treatment.
White, also known as "Uno," was joined at the hospital by a friend whom witnesses called "Jay Money."
After White was treated and released, he and Jay Money went back to the campus apartments and gathered with several other young men and women in one of the rooms on the fourth floor .
One witness said the talk turned to retaliation.
At the end of the evening, witnesses said Jay Money left the dorm room wearing a girl's George Bush High School cheerleader letter jacket.
Gunshots rang out around 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 9 at almost the same shooting location as the night before, and the campus was immediately placed on lockdown.
Both Randall and Lawrence were shot. Randall died at the scene and his brother was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition.
According to HPD, three black men ran inside the student housing building after the shooting and up to the fourth floor. Two of them were detained by police, but one remained at large.
Police began to interview a number of witnesses, who linked the shootings to the basketball game. Surveillance video was also released of the suspected shooter.
Surveillance video showed a man with dreadlocks wearing a letter jacket that witnesses said matched the description of the jacket Jay Money wore the night before.
Video showed the man going off exterior surveillance, then running back to the entrance of the dorm with a semi-automatic, 9-mm pistol in his right hand. The video shows the man looking around first, then entering the building. The man is seen walking back and forth. The man runs to one dorm room on the fourth floor, but it is locked. He then tries another door, which is open, and enters. He was still wearing the letter jacket at the time.
When the man left the room, he was no longer wearing the jacket, but had on a backpack. The video shows the man using the fire exit stairwell at the end of the hallway and leaving the building.
Witnesses told investigators that the man seen on the video, Jay Money, was LeBlanc. Police found LeBlanc's Facebook page, which included his profile picture and the name "Jayy Moneyy WunnHunnet."
Investigators interviewed Flowers at the hospital after the shooting. He told police that he and his brother were witnesses to White's shooting after the basketball game, but were not involved.
Flowers told investigators that he and Randall were walking in the back parking lot of the apartments when they saw White and several other people arguing over the game. Flowers said they saw someone step out of some bushes, holding a handgun, and began firing into the crowd. Flowers said everyone ran and White was struck in the right leg.
Flowers did not identify White's shooter, but identified LeBlanc from a photo lineup as the person who shot him.
Witnesses also identified LeBlanc as the person who shot the brothers.