Three Pierce County men charged following fight, drive-by shooting at Horseshoe Lake Park

Investigators linked three Pierce County men to an incident at Horseshoe Lake Park in South Kitsap earlier this month in which a 16-year-old boy was beat up and then shot at in a drive-by shooting, according to court documents.

On the night of the shooting on June 7, the park was full of people enjoying the warm weather and many people were forced to take cover to avoid the shots, the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office said in a social media post following the incident.

“Deputies wrote in their reports there were approximately one hundred people at the park at the time of the shooting,” a Kitsap County detective wrote about the incident in court documents. “Four vehicles had been damaged by gunfire and ten spent shell casings were found in the parking lot.”

This week, Bishop Sterling Slaughter, 18, of Tacoma, was charged with a count of first-degree assault, while Brandon Ebony Allen, 23, and Kalfani Thabiti Whomes, 25, both of Gig Harbor, were both charged with one count of attempted second-degree robbery in Kitsap County Superior Court. Court documents identify Allen and Whomes as brothers.

“There are many witnesses in this case, many of whom are juveniles, who may be in danger once it’s known these three individuals have been charged,” the detective wrote.

Allen and Whomes were arrested at the Gig Harbor YMCA on Wednesday “after a concerned citizen provided information about their whereabouts,” Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Kevin McCarty said, also noting that a juvenile was also arrested Wednesday for his involvement in the incident. Slaughter is still being sought.

Social media comments

Investigators linked comments the 16-year-old victim made on social media to the fight.

The detective wrote that the victim’s 17-year-old friend died of a suspected drug overdose in November 2022 and that prior to her death, she had told him she was getting drugs from Whomes. That death is being investigated by Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Additionally, the 16-year-old was also told by two teenage friends that Whomes was providing them drugs and that he had sexually assaulted both of them, the detective wrote, noting that investigators spoke with the two girls, who were 14 and 15, and they said they had been purchasing drugs from Allen and Whomes and said they had been sexually assaulted by Whomes.

“After seeing his friends dying and being preyed upon, (the victim) posted derogatory comments about Kalfani on Snapchat,” the detective wrote. “The Snapchat post included text message screenshots from (the victim’s) friends about the sexual assaults. (The victim) would later tell me he posted on Snapchat as a warning to other kids to stay away from Kalfani. It’s believed the Snapchat post is the reason for the assault, robbery attempt and drive-by shooting perpetrated by Kalfani and a group of his associates at Horseshoe Lake Park on 06-07-23.”

Shooting

Deputies were called to the park on reports about a drive-by shooting at about 6:30 p.m. on June 7.

The 16-year-old had been at the park swimming and hanging out with friends when he was approached by Whomes, Allen and several other people, the detective wrote. Whomes asked him if he wanted to fight and eventually Whomes, Allen and two other males started to punch him before someone tackled him and several people stomped on him. At one point, one of the people picked up the boy’s phone and threw it, and someone tried ripping his shoes off.

A female bystander broke up the assault, and the boy, who suffered injuries to his head and face, sat down with a friend to wait for the victim's father to pick them up.

“As (the victim) waited next to the parking lot, Brandon Allen began revving the engine and spinning the tires on his red and black Dodge Charger,” the detective wrote. “Brandon then began driving toward the park exit and as he did so someone on the passenger side of the vehicle began shooting a gun into the air. As the Dodge Charger approached (the victim), the suspect lowered his arm and began shooting directly at (the victim) and his friend. (The victim) pushed his friend down on the ground behind a red Toyota Celica and laid on top of him as the car was hit with gunfire.”

The owner of the Celica followed the Charger to a park in Gig Harbor and confronted the man he saw shooting, later identified as Slaughter, according to court documents. The man apologized, offered to pay to fix the car and the two exchanged Instagram account information to communicate, but later, when the Celica driver went to contact him, he discovered that he had been blocked.

Law enforcement spoke with the female bystander who broke up the fight, and she said she was familiar with Allen and Whomes. She said she saw Allen and others assaulting the boy, the detective wrote. She also saw a man trying to steal the boy's shoes and said this was the same man who she later saw shooting from the back seat of the Charger. She said that after the fight she saw Allen sit in the driver’s seat of the vehicle, Whomes sit in the front passenger seat and three people get into the back seat.

The Celica driver provided her with the Instagram account information he received, and on that account she saw photos of the shooter. As he was attempting to identify the shooter, the detective began monitoring the account, and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department assisted in linking Slaughter to it.

Detectives spoke with someone who was in the Charger, who said she was sitting in the back next to the man who fired the shots as the vehicle was leaving the park. She too had witnessed the initial assault and claimed Allen and Whomes didn't participate, the detective wrote.

Two of the males who had been assaulting the boy got into the Charger with her, Allen and Whomes, she said. After the man sitting next to her began shooting, she “ducked down and didn’t see what happened next, but people told her the person with the gun saw (the victim) and started shooting at him. (She) heard the shooter say something like, ‘That’s what they get!’”

Asked to identify the shooter from a photo lineup, she picked out a booking photo of Slaughter, the detective noted, adding that the Celica driver also picked Slaughter from a photo lineup as the person "who he thought looked like the shooter and the person he talked to."

A search and $15,000 in cash

After the incident, deputies broadcast a description of the Charger, and the next day Pierce County sheriff’s deputies located the vehicle and detained the driver, Allen, about 12 hours after the shooting.

On June 8, a Kitsap deputy spoke with Allen, who confirmed that he was at the park with his brother and said that he saw a group of people who were “fighting a tall kid.”

“I asked if anyone in the back seat did anything as they were leaving that would attract law enforcement’s attention and at this time he mentions that he heard gunshots,” the deputy wrote in a report. “Brandon claimed he did not know who was shooting and that it sounded ‘low’ like fireworks. He added that his music was up and that may have contributed to him not hearing the gunshots well.”

Allen was released but the Charger was impounded to be processed for evidence, the detective wrote. Items were collected for DNA processing, and a backpack containing nearly $15,000 in cash and an unfired 9 mm bullet were also found. After the search, the vehicle and money were returned to Allen.

Anyone who has information related to the incident may contact detectives by calling 911 or emailing KCSOTips@kitsap.gov.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: 3 charged following fight, drive-by shooting at busy South Kitsap park