MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Moments after the clock struck midnight, ringing in the year 2023, gunshots rang out at a crowded New Year’s Day party in a Miami Gardens backyard, police say. Six people were wounded and two were grazed by bullets, according to police.
Now, nearly 11 months later, the accused 18-year-old gunman, Rechard Bartley Jr., is facing nearly two dozen criminal charges, including 20 counts of attempted murder in connection with the mass shooting. A mass shooting, according to the Gun Violence Archive, is one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
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Police said they were called to the 3000 block of Northwest 171st Street at 12:08 a.m. on New Year’s Day and found six people shot in the legs. Medics took them to trauma centers at HCA Florida Aventura Hospital and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
Some of the 20 people attending the party told police that they heard gunshots coming from the north and west of them and saw victims begin to fall to the ground, an arrest warrant states.
Police said they discovered multiple bullet holes in the backyard fence and 58 pistol and rifle casings in the yard of a neighboring home just west and north of the initial crime scene. Bartley and his parents lived in the house, the warrant states.
Bartley’s parents, Rechard Bartley Sr. and Maurissa Holmes, identified in the arrest warrant as suspects, told Miami Gardens police detectives that their son had called them to come home because “someone was shooting,” the warrant states.
Police would later recover a pistol and rifle from their home on Northwest 171st Terrace, as well as small baggies of cocaine and a roughly 6-gram bag of crack cocaine, along with “multiple boxes of ammunition,” according the warrant.
Additionally, police would find two full bricks and one partial brick of cocaine in the trunk of a 2004 Mercury Marauder parked outside of the house.
According to police, Bartley Jr. provided police with his cellphone password and officers found a video of him shooting into the victim’s fence while standing in his backyard. A screenshot included in the warrant shows a still image captioned “happy new years” (sic).
Police took Bartley Jr. into custody at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in downtown Miami on Monday, an arrest report shows. In addition to the 20 attempted murder charges, he’s facing charges of armed criminal mischief, shooting or throwing a deadly missile and cocaine trafficking.
Bartley Jr. was being held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Tuesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Holmes, 47, is facing a cocaine trafficking charge, according to Miami-Dade court records, which did not show any recent charges filed against the elder Bartley, 45, as of Tuesday afternoon.
Holmes was not listed in Miami-Dade jail records as of Tuesday.