Tommy Grays III shot dead in targeted killing during Peurto Rico vacation in what locals now accuse the tourist of having started. Carlos Aníbal Rosado Martínez surrenders to authorities.
A Maryland teenager on a family vacation in Puerto Rico was fatally shot while swimming at a local beach in what authorities say was a targeted shooting.
Tommy Grays III, 17, was gunned down July 1 on an Isla Verde beach after an argument, NBC 4 reported.
The suspected gunman, Carlos Aníbal Rosado Martínez, 23, also allegedly shot the teen’s uncle and stepdad, who was struck in the face and remained hospitalized.
Locals accuse victim of being the aggressor
Martínez turned himself in on Friday and is facing murder, attempted murder and gun charges.
Officials have yet to say what sparked the deadly argument.
The slain teen’s father, also named Tommy Grays, said the issue had been settled by the time the shooter grabbed his gun.
‘My son had actually stopped the situation from happening. He then walked back to the beach and was in the water with his step father when the guy came running back up shooting at them,’ Grays told NBC 4.
The father said that people on the island were unfairly making his son out to be the aggressor in the situation.
‘My boy was an innocent kid with not a single violent bone in his body. He had never been in a physical fight a day in his life and he lost his life and it is being said he was being violent. It makes no sense,’ he added.
Latest fatal US tourist casualty in Puerto Rico
The teen was a rising 12th grader at James Hubert Blake High School in Montgomery, Maryland.
‘He was so excited about it. And he won’t see his first day as a senior,’ his father said.
FOX5 reported a letter being sent out to staff and students on July 3, where Grays was described as ‘extremely loving, thoughtful, and funny.’
The boy was the third tourist to be killed in Puerto Rico over the last two months.
His father says efforts to protect the tourism industry on the island have caused locals to blame the visitors for such deadly encounters.
‘What is happening is it’s been spun as if the tourist was the aggressor in the situation, and that was not the case at all.’ he said.
Tommy’s father has flown to the island to get answers and to attempt to get his child’s body back home.
