The Charlottesville man suspected of shooting and killing another man on Elliewood Avenue in the early hours of Saturday morning appears to be headed for a three-month stint in jail before his first court hearing.
Lakori Rayquan Brooks, 21, has been charged with the second-degree murder of 26-year-old Cody Brian Smith and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, the Charlottesville Police Department announced Monday evening after Brooks’ arrest.
Appearing on video feed from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, Brooks appeared calm as Judge Andrew Sneathern declared that the violent nature of the charges precluded his release.
The shooting Brooks stands accused of occurred on Elliewood Avenue, a stub street considered part of the Corner, a neighborhood next door to University of Virginia Grounds filled with restaurants, bars, shops and often flocks of UVa students. Authorities have not explained what transpired on Saturday, other than to say that shots were fired around 2 a.m. near the parking deck on Elliewood and that a silver sedan was seen speeding away from the scene.
The president of UVa, Jim Ryan, described Smith in a Saturday statement to the university community as a UVa contractor.
Smith died of his injuries, according to the Charlottesville Police Department, at UVa Medical Center at 5:31 a.m. on Saturday.
In Ryan’s statement, the UVa president linked the shooting that took Smith’s life to the ongoing rise in gun violence in and around the Charlottesville area.
“Unfortunately, this incident is part of a trend of increased gun violence in the Charlottesville-Albemarle region. Keeping members of this community safe is our most important responsibility,” Ryan said.
He added that he has directed the UVa Police Department to work with its direct counterparts in the city and county to make tamping down on gun violence “their highest priority.”
“They know, as we all do, that this scourge must end,” Ryan said.
Gun violence in Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County has taken the lives of 14 people and injured 22 others since September of last year, according to an ongoing Daily Progress tally.
The next scheduled hearing slated for Brooks is June 22.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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