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An 18-year-old is the second person to be charged with murder in the shooting death last November of a Lamar High School student, one of a string of crimes authorities have described as part of an ongoing gang war.
Dave’on Thomas was arrested and charged with murder Friday in state district court in connection with the Nov. 13 murder of Delindsey Mack, court records show.
Mack, who had just transferred to Lamar from Yates High School, was walking home from classes on Nov. 13 when two people jumped out of a car and shot him. One of the gunmen stood over him and continued to shoot as he lay dying on the pavement, records state.
Thomas, who police suspect was the driver in the incident, is being held in Harris County Jail on a $200,000 bond. In court documents, prosecutors described him as “an extreme threat to public safety” and said he is a suspect in two other murders and three aggravated robberies.
ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Family of Lamar student shot dead says he was a “big talker” but no gangster.”
Kendrick Johnson, who was in custody on two unrelated aggravated robberies, was charged in March with Mack’s murder and that of 24-year-old Kenneth Roberson, who was killed in southeast Houston last September.
Johnson, 19, also is accused of wounding a person in the neck on Jan. 8 in a drive-by shooting.
The Nov. 13 Lamar attack at sent the River Oaks campus into lockdown and prompted a visit from Mayor Sylvester Turner after a 17-year-old student wrote him a letter expressing concerns about the violence. The mayor then also visited Yates, the Third Ward campus from which Mack had just transferred.
Law enforcement leaders have described a number of recent murders as part of an ongoing war between members two local street gangs, 100 Percent Third Ward (103) – the group to which Thomas belongs, court documents allege — and the Young Scott Block, or YSB, gang.
In the aftermath of the Lamar shooting, Mack’s parents said they hadn’t known about an online persona he’d created portraying himself as a member of the Backstreet/Freemoney gang, a group associated with YSB.
But at least twice before Mack’s death — as far back as December 2016, when he was still at Yates— his mother warned police he was being threatened by gang members.
About 20,000 gang members — in roughly 300 gangs — live in the greater Houston area, according to law enforcement estimates.