PLANT CITY, Fla — The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office on Monday announced the arrests of three people -- three weeks after a teen boy was shot and killed on Interstate 4 near Plant City.
On the afternoon of Aug. 24, the sheriff's office and Florida Highway Patrol troopers responded to a call of shots fired on eastbound I-4 near McIntosh Road. Around the same time, a car arrived at South Florida Baptist Hospital with a wounded 17-year-old inside, investigators said. The teen later died.
The sheriff's office took over after it became a homicide investigation. Sheriff Chad Chronister said last month that investigators did not believe it was a random act.
Chronister on Monday said Jaris Dequan Youngblood, 20, was arrested on Saturday and charged with premeditated first-degree murder with a firearm, shooting into a vehicle and tampering with evidence. His brother, Jarkese Nicholas Youngblood, 22, was arrested in Osceola County and charged with principal to premeditated first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.
Jarkese Youngblood's girlfriend, Sha'Quandra Clarnique Williams, 19, turned herself into the Orient Road Jail, the sheriff's office said. Williams is also charged with tampering with evidence.
Detectives said all three were riding in a gold Ford Taurus owned by Jarkese Youngblood around 3:30 p.m. Aug. 24 when a shooting happened on I-4 near Branch Forbes road. Witnesses told investigators they saw someone in the Taurus shooting at another car.
In the other car was a 17-year-old riding as a passenger. The sheriff's office said the teen was hit in the torso during the shooting.
The arrests happened because of collaborations with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FHP, Plant City Police Department and the Tampa Police Department.
"Consider for a moment vehicles traveling at high speeds on I-4," Chronister said. "Passenger vehicles, tractor-trailers, and heavy equipment haulers. If the victims' vehicle had lost control, we would be looking at an absolute catastrophe and most likely a devastating number of fatalities."
Investigators said the shooting on Aug. 24 "may have been linked to an ongoing neighborhood and online feud" between several young people in the Plant City area.
After multiple interviews, the sheriff's office said the Youngblood brothers saw a group of people they were feuding with driving on I-4, "which is what led Jaris Youngblood to roll down the rear driver's side window and begin shooting" at them while his brother was driving.
The sheriff's office said Williams later admitted that her one-year-old child was in her lap in the front passenger seat at the time of the shooting. After the shooting, Williams sold the gold Ford Taurus to a scrap metal yard in Osceola County "in an effort to hide the evidence," according to the sheriff's office.
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