A 16-year-old killed another teen in a street fight in Norristown, police say
Alex Herrera has been charged as an adult with murder and related crimes for shooting a 15-year-old boy to death during a fight Wednesday evening.
For $750, Alex Herrera, barely old enough to get his driver’s license, armed himself with a gun he bought from an older teen, Montgomery County prosecutors said Thursday.
And Herrera brought the illegal ghost gun, a .40 caliber Glock 23 assembled from parts purchased online, to a street fight between two groups of teens in Norristown late Wednesday. He tucked the gun into his waistband before heading to the fight “just in case things got out of hand,” he told detectives according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Then, authorities said, Herrera shot a 15-year-old boy to death, telling investigators he did so in self-defense. But the teen he killed was not armed, they said. And prosecutors charged Herrera as an adult with murder and related crimes.
He remained in custody, denied bail. It was unclear if he had hired a lawyer.
Norristown Police responded to reports of a shooting about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on Haws Alley, a side street near George Street, the affidavit said.
There, they found the victim, whom police did not identify, shot once in the head. The officers took him to Paoli Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
The officers also found Herrera’s cellphone, which he had apparently dropped in the alley during the fight, the affidavit said.
A Norristown officer responding to the shooting had stopped Herrera after noticing him limping, thinking he might have been shot. Herrera told the officer he had been assaulted, and the officer took him to the police station to learn more about the fight.
County detectives later came to question him about the shooting.
The teen told them he and a friend joined the fight to settle an unspecified “beef” between the two groups of teens, the affidavit said.
The groups agreed to meet for the confrontation, the document said, but had to switch locations twice because police officers dispersed the crowd as it gathered.
At the third meeting spot, in the alley, Herrera said he was outnumbered during the fight and attacked by multiple people at once, according to the affidavit. He pulled his gun and pointed it at the victim to get him to back off, he said, and when the boy didn’t, he pulled the trigger.
Herrera told detectives he gave the gun to another teen, but police were unable to recover the weapon.
