Of 3 Broward men, 2 were shot. Now, one is dead, one is arrested and one is a fugitive
Almost two months after an arrest warrant was issued in a January Broward County double shooting that left one man dead, suspect Leronte Smith was found and arrested.
But one of the men Smith is accused of shooting is now listed as a fugitive by the Florida Department of Corrections.
As for the 34-year-old Smith, he’s listed as an inmate in Broward County Jail, held on no bond after being charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. He’s not yet charged with being a felon with a firearm, despite his felony battery conviction in 2010 that sent Smith to prison for five months.
Broward also is holding Smith for Palm Beach County, where law enforcement also wanted Smith on burglary and petit theft charges.
READ MORE: A double shooting kills one man in a Broward residential neighborhood
Online court records don’t list an attorney for Smith after the Broward County Public Defender’s Office filed to be excused from the job. The office pointed out it’s representing the two men Smith is accused of shooting on Jan. 9, 33-year-old Brandon Dessalines and 26-year-old DeWitt Butler, as well as one of the witnesses in other cases. That legal commitment remains through Dessalines’ death in the shooting.
Arrest paperwork says Butler was shot in the leg and was in Broward Health Medical Center until at least Jan. 13. But on Sunday, the Florida Department of Corrections website lists Butler as being under community control probation until Feb. 1, 2024, after grand theft auto and as an Absconder/Fugitive.
Monday, Jan. 9, 2023
An arrest warrant says two ShotSpotter alerts from a home brought deputies to the 1400 block of Northwest 27th Avenue at 2:39 a.m. Jan. 9. Deputies found Dessalines dead and Butler with a gunshot wound to a leg. They also found five 9mm casings from Sig Sauer, Blazer and I-USA. Butler eventually told BSO detectives that he and Dessalines were sitting at a bus stop when a black Mercedes pulled up and people inside began shooting.
The arrest warrant also said surveillance video from nearby homes showed a black four-door Mercedes with a spoiler added after the car was driven off the lot. About a half mile away and seven hours after the shooting, Fort Lauderdale police investigating a theft found two Sig Sauer 9mm casings outside the passenger side of a black Mercedes with an after-market spoiler.
Surveillance video showed the Mercedes being parked there, in the 2300 block of Northwest 16th Court, since about three minutes after the shooting. While investigators were there, a 27-year-old man walked up and said he was there to pick up the Mercedes for his brother, the registered owner, who had rented it to someone else. The 27-year-old said he got a phone call to meet with someone in the 1600 block of Northwest 24th Avenue to get the keys to the car.
The arrest warrant says when detectives searched the car, they found a bank statement from Navy Federal Credit Union for Leronte J. Smith. Butler, the warrant says, later identified Smith in a photo lineup as the person who shot him and killed Dessalines.
