HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced multiple arrests on Monday, in the deadly shooting that took place in August in Interstate 4, near Plant City.
Jaris Youngblood Jr., 20, Jarkese Youngblood, 22, and Sha’Quandra Williams, 20, were arrested and charged in this killing. Both Youngbloods were charged with premeditated murder while Willimas was charged with only tampering with evidence.
‘They showed no regard for other innocent drivers on I-4, or the infant child who was riding in the car with them,” Sheriff Chronister said, “Consider for a moment, vehicles traveling at high speeds on Interstate 4. Passenger, vehicles, tractor-trailers, and heavy equipment haulers. If the victims had lost control. We would be looking at an absolute catastrophe and most likely a devastating number of fatalities.”
The shooting incident followed several recent shootings on I-4 and within city jurisdictions of Plant City and Tampa, which led HCSO to begin working closely with the Plant City Police Department and Tampa Police Department, along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) in an effort to find potential links between these cases and solve them.
“To address concerns that this incident may be linked to a serial shooter along I-4, fortunately, that is not the case,” said Sheriff Chronister.
The agencies worked with the FDLE to conduct ballistics testing from the shootings, which did not confirm a connection between other I-4 shootings over the summer.
Detectives believe that the I-4 shooting on August 24 may have been linked to an ongoing neighborhood and online feud between young people within and outside of the Plant City area. Following multiple interviews, detectives learned that the Youngblood brothers saw a group of individuals they were feuding with while driving down I-4, which is what led Jaris Youngblood to roll down the rear driver’s side window and begin shooting at the individuals while his brother was driving.
With the help of statements from witnesses driving on I-4, detectives were able to locate surveillance videos from numerous nearby businesses where the suspect vehicle stopped after the August 24th shooting. Video evidence combined with interviews helped detectives identify the Youngbloods and Sha’Quandra Williams as the individuals in the suspect vehicle at the time of the shooting.
Williams later admitted to detectives that her one-year-old child was riding in her lap in the front passenger seat when the shooting occurred on I-4. Days after the shooting, Williams sold Jarkese Youngblood’s gold Ford Taurus to a scrap metal yard in Osceola County in an effort to hide the evidence.
The full press press conference is embedded below.
