Four men jailed over funeral drive-by shooting outside Euston church that left four women and two girls injured
12 April 2024, 18:01 | Updated: 12 April 2024, 18:35
Four men have been jailed over the drive-by shooting of four women and two girls outside a church funeral service last year.
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Tyrell Lacroix, 23, Jashy Perch, 20, Jordan Walters, 24 and Alrico Nelson-Martin, 20, were all involved in the shooting in January last year.
The victims, four women and two girls aged between 11 and 54, had been attending a funeral service at St Aloysius Church in Euston.
A sawn-off shotgun was fired into a crowd of mourners who had just left the service. One girl was left with life-changing injuries after a metal pellet was embedded in a muscle near her heart.
Another woman was left with injuries that have impacted her hearing and balance.
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The four men were sentenced for conspiracy to wound with intent to cause serious harm, at Kingston Crown Court on Friday.
Perch was sentenced for having an offensive weapon and for possession of cannabis. Nelson-Martin, meanwhile, was sentenced for possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life.
Lacroix was jailed for 21 years with a further five years on licence, Perch was jailed for 16 years with a further four years on licence, Walters was jailed for 13 years, and Nelson-Martin was jailed for 14 years.
The defendants had tried to target a rival gang, believing they would be at the service, Kingston Crown Court heard.
As well as a pellet lodging in a muscle next to her heart, one of the little girls also sustained gunshot wounds to her arms, legs, and pelvic region.
Her mother said in a victim impact statement that she had asked her, "mummy, why has this happened to me?"
The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: "She felt like she had done something wrong and could not understand why."
She added that the incident had "taken away" her daughter's innocence.
The memorial service was a requiem Mass for Sara Sanchez, 20, and her mother, Fresia Calderon, 50, who died in November 2022. Ms Sanchez had suffered from leukaemia for three years. She died after her mother died suddenly from a rare blood clot on arrival at Heathrow from Colombia.
The planning of the attack began in November 2022 when Lacroix found the black Toyota car that would be used in the shooting, Scotland Yard said.
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Sentencing Lacroix, Judge Mark Bryant-Heron QC said: "You, Tyrell Lacroix, had been stabbed in an attack by a rival gang member almost exactly a year before the shooting.
"And you, Tyrell Lacroix, were set on revenge. Your co-conspirators played their part in helping you to get your revenge.
"It is the misfortune of those that organised the memorial service that the deceased people who were being commemorated were from the Regent's Park estate, an area regarded by you as territory under the control of the Cumbo gang."
Andrew Hudson, Acting Unit Head of the CPS London Complex Casework Unit, said: “Innocent members of the public, including children, were seriously injured and traumatised as a result of this revenge attack related to gangs in the local area.
“Painstaking analysis of CCTV and mobile phone evidence meant that we could piece together the defendants’ movements before and after the shooting, including how they each played their own part in the conspiracy.
“On a day when the community came together to celebrate and remember the lives of loved ones, their time to grieve was shattered by this shocking and senseless act of violence, which has undoubtedly had a devastating effect on the victims in this case, and indeed, the wider community.
“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims and members of the community who were injured and traumatised by this violent attack.
“I hope that today’s sentence will provide a sense of justice to everyone involved.”
