A 33-year-old Texas man was indicted Tuesday on a homicide cost within the February 2022 killing of 9-year-old Arlene Alvarez – practically two years after one other grand jury had declined to indict him in reference to the kid’s deadly taking pictures.
Tony Earls Jr. was launched after a Harris County grand jury declined to indict him for aggravated assault in July 2022. However the case was introduced earlier than one other grand jury this 12 months after District Lawyer Kim Ogg assigned a particular prosecutor to re-examine it.
Earls was at a financial institution on the evening of February 14, 2022, when he was robbed at gunpoint, the district legal professional’s workplace mentioned in a information launch. Whereas the robber ran away, Earls took out a gun and commenced firing on the suspect, the workplace mentioned.
As Earls started taking pictures, the Alvarez household drove previous the financial institution – with Arlene within the again seat – and he fired a number of pictures into their pickup truck, fatally putting the younger woman, the district legal professional’s workplace mentioned. Arlene’s mother and father beforehand informed CNN affiliate KHOU they have been on their option to a Houston restaurant for a Valentine’s Day dinner when their daughter was shot within the head.
Arlene, who was in fourth grade, took care of her youthful siblings – who have been additionally within the car on the time of the taking pictures, her mother and father’ legal professional mentioned – and “bought together with everybody.”
Earls beforehand mentioned he started taking pictures as a result of he heard gunshots when the robber began to run away, and believed he was being shot at, in response to prosecutors. He allegedly was unaware somebody had been hit by his gunfire and he left the scene to name police and report the theft, in response to KHOU.
He was arrested and charged however was launched after the grand jury declined to indict him.
Particular prosecutor Warren Diepraam, who took on the case, mentioned an FBI firearms professional was introduced in to look at the proof.
“The professional’s opinion is that Mr. Earls noticed the robber run previous the car with Arlene Alvarez inside — the car didn’t do something to present Mr. Earls a justification to shoot into the passing car,” Diepraam mentioned in a Wednesday assertion.
Houston police are nonetheless working to determine and arrest the armed one that robbed Earls, he added.
CNN has reached out to Earls’ attorneys for remark. If convicted, he faces 5 years to life in jail, the district legal professional’s workplace mentioned.
“We now have an obligation to see that justice is finished, and that meant asking a brand new grand jury to have a look at new proof,” Ogg, the district legal professional, mentioned in a press release. “We now have performed every thing attainable to determine precisely what occurred that day to make sure that we get justice.”
CNN’s Andy Rose contributed to this report.
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