US suspect in custody after fatal shootings of 3 family members

Police work following a shooting in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 16, 2024. – An “extremely dangerous” suspect was taken into custody in New Jersey on March 16, 2024 after allegedly shooting dead three family members, authorities said, following an hours-long effort to detain him. (Photo by Joe LAMBERTI / AFP) / ALTERNATE CROP – ALTERNATE CROP

By Joe Lamberti


TRENTON, United States, March 17, 2024 (AFP)
– An “extremely dangerous” suspect was taken into custody in New Jersey on Saturday after allegedly shooting dead three family members, authorities said, following an hours-long effort to detain him.

Andre Gordon, 26, “surrendered peacefully,” Trenton Police Department spokesperson Lisette Rios told AFP, after a trail of violence that triggered shelter-in-place orders in two states.

Authorities said Gordon, who is believed to be homeless, began the day by carjacking a vehicle in Trenton before driving some 40 miles (65 kilometers) to the northern Philadelphia suburb of Levittown.

There, police said, the suspect killed two people — identified as his 52-year-old stepmother and his 13-year-old sister.

Three others, including a minor, managed to hide “as he went through the house searching for them,” Bucks County, Pennsylvania district attorney Jennifer Schorn said in a briefing.

The suspect then drove to a nearby residence where he broke in before shooting and killing a 25-year-old woman — who Schorn said was the mother of his two children — before bludgeoning her mother with the butt of his rifle. She was expected to recover.

Driving to a nearby discount store, the suspect carjacked a 44-year-old man before fleeing. The man was not injured, according to Falls Township, Pennsylvania Sheriff Nelson Whitney.

The suspect then drove across the state line back to Trenton, where police believed he had barricaded himself in a three-story house.

Police evacuate a person (L bottom) from a home in Trenton New Jersey, on March 16, 2024, after reports of a gunman, who is suspected of a shooting spree in Pennsylvania, was barricaded in the house. – Three people were killed by gunfire in two shootings in a Philadelphia suburb Saturday and the suspect fled and remains barricaded in a house in Trenton, police and local authorities reported. Police in Middletown Township, just north of Philadelphia, confirmed on their Facebook page that shots had been fired in nearby Falls Township, leaving “several gunshot victims.” (Photo by Joe LAMBERTI / AFP)
Police enter a home in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 16, 2024, after reports of a gunman, who is suspected of a shooting spree in Pennsylvania, was barricaded in a house. – An “extremely dangerous” suspect was taken into custody in New Jersey on March 16, 2024 after allegedly shooting dead three family members, authorities said, following an hours-long effort to detain him. (Photo by Joe LAMBERTI / AFP)
Police remove people from a home in Trenton New Jersey, on March 16, 2024, after reports of a gunman, who is suspected of a shooting spree in Pennsylvania, was barricaded in the house. – Three people were killed by gunfire in two shootings in a Philadelphia suburb Saturday and the suspect fled and remains barricaded in a house in Trenton, police and local authorities reported. Police in Middletown Township, just north of Philadelphia, confirmed on their Facebook page that shots had been fired in nearby Falls Township, leaving “several gunshot victims.” (Photo by Joe LAMBERTI / AFP) / ALTERNATE CROP – ALTERNATE CROP

Whitney had said the suspect was believed to be armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle and police described him as “extremely dangerous.”

For several hours they appealed to him to surrender, after SWAT officers evacuated people in the home through a second-story window.

“Andre, get away from the windows. We know you’re inside, if you’d like to surrender, dial 911 now,” police said over loudspeaker. “You’re a young man, you have too much to live for.”

Later on Saturday Gordon was “located at another location in Trenton,” Rios said.

Trenton Police Director Steve Wilson said Gordon was uninjured and walking along a street when a patrol officer approached him.

Gordon had apparently slipped out of the house before police had completed setting up a perimeter, Wilson said.

Because the suspect crossed state lines, federal authorities — including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were working the case, along with local, county and state police.

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