Wawa shooting: Florida teen arrested in fatal shooting

A 17-year-old suspect has been arrested after a 15-year-old boy was killed in a shooting at Wawa in Riviera Beach, Florida.

Kamari Williams was arrested Saturday and booked into the Juvenile Assessment Center on charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder and possession of a firearm as a delinquent.

The Riviera Beach Police Department responded to a shooting at a Wawa convenience store at 7289 Garden Road on June 26. They found a teenage victim dead and another juvenile seriously injured with multiple gunshot wounds.

The identities of the victims have not been released by police. Newsweek contacted the RBPD for further comment.

However, WPBF reports that the deceased boy is Anthony Thurston, Jr., who was remembered Sunday in a candlelight memorial service.

“I miss him so much, my life will never be the same and I just wish I could have him back one more day,” AJ’s mother, Shaakiara Smith, told the outlet.

Smith said he last saw AJ the night of the shooting, when he asked him for money to buy a sandwich at Wawa. AJ's brother, Trevor, 17, accompanied him to the store. Smith said the suspect looked at his sons inside the store, said “What's up?” and then started shooting.

Smith said his sons did not know the shooter.

“You're supposed to be safe in a place like this,” Smith said of the grocery store.

Last fall, the RBPD launched an initiative aimed at cracking down on dangerous and unsafe convenience stores. Authorities said the locations were meeting points for drug deals and worse.

“Some of the items they sell in the stores are crime scenes. Some of the items they sell, like illegal slot machines, are crime scenes,” RBPD Maj. Travis Walker told WPTV.

Police said the crackdown was a success, as the number of 911 calls dropped at most of the stores they monitored. That included Super Meat Market, which had nearly 80 911 calls in 2023 and dropped by nearly half in May.

Authorities told the outlet that not responding to fight calls and loitering complaints helps them respond to real emergencies.

“We found that officers were responding to these stores at an alarming rate,” Walker said. “It's not just one officer. It takes two officers, because one officer can't respond alone … to things that we can fix.”

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