The brother of Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles was arrested in connection with a triple-homicide that occurred in Cleveland, reports say.
24-year-old Tevin Biles-Thomas has been charged with six counts of murder, three counts of voluntary manslaughter, five counts of felonious assault, and one count of perjury.
According to legal documents, Biles-Thomas is currently being held at the Cuyahoga County Jail, awaiting his arraignment scheduled for Sept. 13, reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Aug. 29.
“The relentless persistence of Cleveland police homicide detectives helped secure an indictment in this case,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor O’Malley said in a statement obtained by the paper.
“It is through their hard work that we can begin to seek justice for these victims.”
The brother of Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles is charged in a New Year’s Eve shooting that left three dead at an Airbnb party. https://t.co/uS6I4y6cjB
— clevelanddotcom (@clevelanddotcom) August 29, 2019
Biles-Thomas, who went to high school in Cleveland before serving in the U.S. Army, is so far, the only person charged in the New Year’s Eve triple-homicide.
Representatives for Simone Bile’s have yet to issue a statement on the matter.
The victims of the attack, 23-year-old Devaughn Gibson, 19-year-old DelVaunte Johnson, and 21-year-old Toshon Banks, were found with multiple gunshot wounds.
Johnson was a student, Gibson was a barber, and Banks was a laborer.
A 21-year-old man was also shot in the head during the incident, and a 23-year-old was shot in the arm. They survived, however, reported News5Cleveland.
Police say the shooting occurred when a group of men showed up at a party held at an Airbnb uninvited. When the group of men was asked to leave, one of the members opened fire.
“We’ve had very few problems. This is somebody that rented it, had a party that got out of control and horrific things happened,” Councilman Anthony Brancatelli said.
“One of the things I’ve learned early on in this job is that we can’t regulate morality. If people want to do illegal acts, we can only put into place punishment when they do and remind people of what their responsibilities are. We can mitigate it the best we can. And then when something horrific like this happens we have to have the ability to react to it. We reacted. [Airbnb] shut them down as a host. That’s all we can ask for is people to be responsible,” Brancatelli said.
The Airbnb was reportedly located above a pizzeria, the Plain Dealer reported.
Cleveland Division of Police Chief Calvin Williams said, according to the report. “… We appreciate our partnership with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office and are confident that their efforts will bring justice for the families affected by this terrible incident.”
Families of Victims Speak Out
Family members and other loved ones spoke about the loss of those who were killed.
Cheria Hall-Hobbs, the mother of Gibson, said that her family started a scholarship fund in Gibson’s name. Shortly after the death of Gibson, Hall-Hobbs’ cousin was shot dead.
“Whoever gets this is someone who has the same determination as my son,” said Hall-Hobbs, noting her son was enrolled in trucking school and was a student at Tri-C with a 4.0-grade point average. “Someone who wants something, they might just need a little help.”
“Their legacy is not going to be that they were killed,” said Hall-Hobbs. “Their legacy is going to be that they were awesome young men who even after death is still giving.”
US Crime Statistics
Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).
The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.
The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.
The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.
While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.
Jack Phillips and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
