West Palm Beach shooting leaves 34-year-old man dead

WEST PALM BEACH — A 34-year-old man was shot to death Thursday evening along Sapodilla Avenue and 11th Street, marking the 13th reported killing in the city this year, West Palm Beach police said.

Authorities found an injured Jamal Rhames at about 6:30 p.m. They took him to a hospital, where he died later that evening.

Police would not comment on a potential motive or a suspect but stressed the killing it wasn’t random.

Over the last year, more than 1 in 4 of the county’s homicides happened within the West Palm city limits, a Palm Beach Post database shows. That’s 24 of the county’s 87 reported killings.

Of those, six happened along a few blocks on the north end of Sapodilla Avenue, just south of the intersection with Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.

City leaders walked those streets last fall when gunfire erupted during a particularly “hot” few weeks.

Chief Sarah Mooney wouldn’t go as far as to say those shootings were related but said they likely had at least a loose connection because of their locations.

Police made only one arrest in the seven shootings between Oct. 20 and Nov. 6.

No one has been arrested in the Oct. 20 killing of Marquell Larrice Green, 23, or the Jan. 19 shooting death of Daniel Boynton, 56, just feet away from where Green was killed.

In late April, gunfire killed Samuel Brown a few blocks southeast of there. The 44-year-old died protecting his teenage son, relatives said.

Not even two weeks later, 22-year-old Victor Joseph’s body was found on a sidewalk on Eighth.

And on May 24, Brandon De’andre Williams, 20, was shot dead in broad daylight. Police haven’t arrested anyone in the deaths of Brown, Joseph or Williams.

“It’s all connected,” a woman said about the shootings as she walked along Sapodilla on Friday morning. “There’s my statement.”

Witnesses not making statements is a key factor in the lack of arrests, Mooney said last fall.

During the October Peace Walk, dozens handed out slips of paper from Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County with information on how to submit tips anonymously to authorities.

The message then, as now, is direct: If you saw something, say something.

LANNIS WATERS / THE PALM BEACH POST A poster seeking information about the murder of Jamal Rhames on Thursday night is taped up near the intersection of Sapodilla Avenue and 11th Street on Friday, near where the shooting took place.