Good Guy with a Gun #187: Cleveland, OH
Five kids. Ninety minutes. Five armed robberies. One of them was twelve years old. Another one is dead. | Original incident: May 4, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
I have to be honest: Sometimes I read what I just wrote and I think, “That can’t be real. That’s too sad or stupid or cruel to be true.”
This is one of those times.
Five youths — it sounds like four were 17, and the fifth was just twelve — went on a 90-minute crime spree on a Saturday in Cleveland.
2:25 PM, they carjacked someone at gunpoint.
They drove five miles in that car and robbed someone of his iPad at gunpoint.
35 minutes later, they robbed someone else of his iPhone.
They drove south about four miles and carjacked another person at gunpoint.
By 4:00 PM, they had driven both stolen vehicles back north to an area near the lake where they found an Amazon delivery driver and carjacked him at gunpoint.
During the carjacking, 17-year-old Alquin Wells was shot by the Amazon driver. He tried to escape in the Amazon driver’s car, but he crashed and fell out of the car.
Wells was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police caught the other four of them. Two were arrested right away — 17-year-old Sebastian Gonzalez and the 12-year-old boy.
There are dozens of charges against them all, and the reporting isn’t fully clear on who got charged with what. One thing that’s clear: Gonzalez was charged with 30 or more counts for the spree, including aggravated robbery, grand theft of a motor vehicle, attempted grand theft, and murder for his role in Wells’s death, along with gun specifications. He’s being tried as an adult. As of today, it doesn’t look like he has been convicted or sentenced.
The twelve-year-old (I still can’t believe I’m writing that) was being tried for similar crimes in juvenile court.
Addenda
It’s possible that this team was the same one referred to in an article that names adult Zoilo Jose Munoz-Olmo as a recipient of stolen goods. That possible linkage happens in this article, where it says Gonzalez was charged with stealing $7,500 worth of camera equipment from an elderly victim. That isn’t mentioned in the 90-minute crime spree, but it could be from another day or time.
I wouldn’t expect the name Alquin Wells to arise prior to this event because of his youth, but there’s a man by that name indicted as part of a Cleveland-area heroin and fentanyl distribution ring. That man is older, though: 37 years old when indicted in 2019.
The cars stolen were a Honda CRV, a GMC Acadia, and a Toyota Corolla. I don’t know which was stolen from whom. I know, I know, you don’t really need to know this.
Cleveland.com really wants you to know that incidents like this are relatively unusual: Despite perception, youths commit a small portion of Cleveland’s violent deaths, data shows. For most of us, being a crime victim is also relatively unusual, so we still have to worry about that baby-faced kid being a violent criminal. It’s not a lightning strike.
Sources
Cleveland.com had a thread of articles about this incident:
Authorities say 17-year-old Cleveland teen killed during Amazon carjacking
Cleveland man indicted on murder charges in Amazon carjacking death (“Man” because Gonzalez was 18 by this time.)
Fox 8 also covered the incident, and remember that they had the article that might be about another spree, naming Zoilo Jose Munoz-Olmo.
19 News (WOIO) had an initial report and a follow-up.
Limaohio.com had a write-up as well.
On the radio front, Z107.9 — zhiphopcleveland.com — covered the story.
Finally, if you want to read Facebook comments about the incident, there are over 400 of them on the Cleveland, Ohio Remembrance Page. Not that I recommend reading Facebook comments much, but it’s nice to see how many people are okay with the judicious use of gun violence in self-defense.