Community Police & Fire
Prosecutors charge two in 2023 drive-by shooting in Gig Harbor
Pierce County prosecutors this week charged two South Kitsap County men in connection with a drive-by shooting in Gig Harbor on June 6, 2023.
Charging documents indicate the two men may have been attempting to exact revenge for the 2021 killing of Tyrone Sero, 19, in Port Orchard.
Suspects
Prosecutors charged Rocco Anthony Fanara, 19, of Port Orchard; and Demondrae L. Jones, 20, of Olalla.
Fanara and Jones are both charged with two counts of first-degree assault and one count of drive-by shooting. Neither has any criminal history, according to court documents.
Both remain in the Pierce County Jail on $500,000 bail.
Their next court hearings are scheduled for Jan. 27. A jury trial could begin as soon as Feb. 19.
Nobody was injured during the shooting that took place near the intersection of Hunt Street and 38th Avenue around 9:30 p.m. on June 6, 2023.
Connected to 2021 killing
Documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court indicate that Fanara and Jones were friends of Sero. The victims in the drive-by shooting were siblings of one of the three people convicted in connection with Sero’s killing.
The series of events leading to the Hunt Street shooting began at a Chipotle restaurant on Point Fosdick Drive. Police said Fanara and Jones, along with a larger group of friends, were eating there when they saw two people they recognized as relatives of one of the men convicted in the killing of their friend, Sero.
Fanara, Jones and their friends got in two vehicles and followed the other two people, who are siblings, when they left the restaurant.
One of the victims said he noticed the cars following him and driving aggressively. On Hunt Street, he told police, he saw at least one person fire a “Glock-style” gun at his vehicle.
Police found five bullet holes in the siblings’ car. They also found 18 spent casings, two live rounds and a discarded magazine at the scene of the shooting.
One of the victims may have provided some of those spent casings. He told police that after the shooting, he fled to a nearby home, retrieved a firearm from inside and shot twice in the direction of where the pursing cars had been.
Fanara and Jones denied any involvement in initial interviews with police. They later admitted to firing at the vehicle, but alleged that one of the siblings shot first.
Sero shooting death
Tyrone Sero, 19, was killed in October 2021. Two men were sentenced to over seven years in prison and a third, the shooter, received 17 years.
Two of the three men sentenced for Sero’s killing lived in Gig Harbor.
Prosecutors in that case said Sero got into a car with the three men intending to sell them marijuana. Instead, a struggle began and one of the three men sentenced began to drive away with Sero in the car. One of the three shot Sero in the back of the head during the struggle.
The three defendents dismembered Sero’s body at a property in Mason County. They burned his remains, put what was let in three bags and tried to dispose of them.