Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – As Norris Gaynor absorbed fatal blows from a baseball bat, police say another attacker blasted his body with paintballs.
The man who police say fired the paintball gun is William Ammons, 18, who was booked into Broward County jail on suspicion of murder.
His arrest in Gaynor’s death Thursday followed his release from custody hours earlier in another attack on a homeless man.
Ammons and two friends, Brian Hooks, 18, and Thomas Daugherty, 17, face charges in three beatings involving homeless men, and law enforcement officials from other agencies are investigating whether there is a connection to other reported assaults.
Police say Ammons was one of two witnesses who told detectives that Hooks and Daugherty were responsible for last week’s attacks.
The first, at 1:20 a.m. Thursday, left Jacques Pierre, 58, hospitalized with head trauma. An hour later, Gaynor was dying on a park bench. His family buried him Tuesday.
The final assault woke Raymond Perez, 49, from his sleep in a church garden. He, too, is being treated at a hospital.
Daugherty and Hooks face aggravated assault and murder charges in the attacks on Pierre and Gaynor. Ammons faces identical charges in the attacks on Gaynor and Perez.
Ammons admitted that he joined the attack on Gaynor, according to his arrest report. Ammons grabbed a paintball gun from his SUV and opened fire on Gaynor as he lay bleeding, the report said.
Detectives seized paintballs, a paintball gun and Ammons’ SUV as evidence in the case, said Capt. Michael Gregory, head of detectives for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. A bat was taken from Hooks’ home as well.
Earlier Tuesday, Hooks had his first court hearing. Hooks said little via video from the Broward County jail.
His attorney said there was no evidence that his client struck anyone.
Countered prosecutor Lee Cohen: “The defendant helped another person commit a crime. He aided in the crime.”
Broward County Judge Steven DeLuca ordered that Hooks be held without bail. Daugherty is being held in a juvenile detention center.
Records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show Ammons was arrested on a robbery charge in 2004, but the outcome of that juvenile case was unavailable.
Ammons’ neighbors in the River Oaks community of Fort Lauderdale describe him as a high school dropout who didn’t cause trouble.
Though Daugherty dropped out of South Plantation High School, he recently applied for classes at an alternative school.
The day before the beatings, the teen took a placement test at the Life Skills Center in Plantation’s Fashion Mall, said Laurel Moorehead, principal of the charter school for at-risk students.
